


The Bun-Head in the Oven

by AngelMoonGirl



Category: Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon | Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon, Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon | Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Angst, Baby, Comedy, Drama, F/M, Family, Fluff, Friendship, Hurt/Comfort, Minor Character Death, Pregnancy, Romance, Romantic Comedy, Tragedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-19
Updated: 2017-12-19
Packaged: 2019-02-17 04:01:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 25
Words: 33,536
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13068681
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AngelMoonGirl/pseuds/AngelMoonGirl
Summary: Usagi and Mamoru are overjoyed to be expecting Chibi-Usa, but this pregnancy won't play out without its fair share of ups and downs. A series of twenty-five drabbles in response to the Transmissions From The Moon challenge on Tumblr. COMPLETE!





	1. Tomorrow

Usagi Chiba (née Tsukino) was a great many things, but astute, she was not.

Twenty-freaking-one years old, and she still needed a cat to point her in the right direction.

" _You really think so_?"

"I really think so," the guardian feline with a shock of black fur purred, and there was just enough holier-than-thou inflection in her voice to set Usagi scowling. She straightened on the bed; folded two indignant arms across her chest.

"I don't know if I think so."

"Oh, I think so," the cat demurred, casually extending a few claws. Usagi eyed her small companion warily. "I also think,  _if_  I'm right, that this is hardly the time to turn a blind eye."

The blonde with buns for hair fingered nervously at one of the flaxen-colored wisps that tickled at her ear. She glanced toward the window, waxing sunlight catching her gentle profile so that she looked, just for a moment, like the Neo-Queen to come. A sigh rumbled in her throat.

"I suppose I shouldn't discredit the idea yet. But... it's  _probably_  just a bug, Luna."

"Don't you want to know for sure?" Luna parried, and her bright crimson depths flashed with something like motherly concern. Usagi chuckled as she threw up her hands like a criminal caught.

"Alright! Alright! I'll buy a pregnancy test tomorrow. Happy? Now. Mamo-chan will be home from work any minute, and I really have to get dinner going!" The vivacious young woman flounced from the mattress and made for the bedroom door, but not without a last mulish grumble under her breath.

"I still don't think so."

"I think so!" Luna shouted back, and she shook her head with affectionate exasperation when the only response was a slammed door.

**_Next Prompt_ : "Answers"**


	2. Answers

Usagi stared down at the test, her features so intent she might have been prepping for brain surgery.

Three minutes.

Three more minutes until her life might very well change beyond recognition. Forever.

To say she was "nervous" would've been a farcical understatement. The young bun-headed woman couldn't seem to stay still. Her leg bounced up and down as if overcome by a tic. She tapped the fingers of one hand in a rapid drumming session against the cool marble top of the toilet, while her other waved the stick as if that would expedite the process.

The stick that was about to determine her fate - the course of the rest of her life.

Usagi swallowed harshly as a solitary pink line began to form. The color stirred up memories of another pink, crowned around a cherubic child's face, and with it the familiar old ache.

_Chibi-Usa_.

The visits from her precocious future progeny had become fewer and farther in between, after the battle with Galaxia. Usagi had been so busy with her own life, she hardly noticed how sporadic their time together had become. When there wasn't school, there was her new job. Then came the engagement with Mamoru, and those six months were a veritable blur of planning, phoning, packing and panicking (mostly panicking). She hadn't even realized how long she'd gone without seeing Chibi-Usa until the girl made her reappearance at the wedding itself. Dressed to the nines in a breathtaking yet simple variation of the gown Princess Serenity of the Moon Kingdom used to favor, Usagi had realized her future daughter wasn't so much "girl" as "young woman" now.

The reunion had been tearful. Chibi-Usa explained that she was being much more rigorously trained on matters of political science, in preparation for her eventual ascension to the throne. She had also coyly insinuated that her Senshi duties were keeping her fairly active as well. Usagi had laughed, picturing her daughter as some demure princess by day and fearless vigilante by night. She had been so proud. Until the kicker.

This was her last visit to the past. Chibi-Usa hadn't been able to keep her composure as she relayed the news, mandated by Pluto and none other than Neo-Queen Serenity herself. Usagi shivered as she remembered what a terrible shock that had been, knowing she was not to see this incarnation of her daughter again - not until she lived this moment right alongside her, a totally different person in a totally different role.

That was two years ago. Two years since 'Big Sister' Usagi died to make way for 'Mama' Usagi, and now here she was, perched upon the precipice. It was both frightening and exhilarating.

Usagi's breath caught.

She saw it - very faintly, but becoming more clear by the second, there was another pink line, forming beside the first.

Her heart lurched and she yelped with joy, or maybe it was pure terror. Likely some marriage of the two.

Pregnant.  _She was pregnant._

Her answer, spelled out in ink as pink as the hair of the child on her way, and this time, of the permanent kind.

Usagi laughed and shook her head in delightful disbelief.

Luna was right!

**_Next Prompt_ : "Royal"**


	3. Royal

Mamoru Chiba was a great many things, but astute, he was not.

Granted, he wasn't as slow on the uptake as his wife could be sometimes. Generally. Okay, most times. Which was part of her charm, really.

But today? Today, he definitely took the cake.

It all started on an ordinary Friday night, when he'd just gotten back from his shift at the hospital. In his defense, it had been a long shift. A  _long_ ,  _grueling_ ,  _miserable_  shift, full of inept interns and gross bodily fluids, so of course he couldn't be expected to be on his A-game... Right?

Usagi bounced around the house like a bunny on steroids, babbling nonsense that Mamoru only half digested as he hung his jacket, slid off his shoes and went to go change. Usagi followed, never having truly grasped the concept of 'personal space'. He didn't usually mind - he normally coveted her earnest affections, so absent from his earlier years - but today, Mamoru could feel his patience waning thin.

"And this one little girl at the market, she had a tiara - oh it was just the cutest thing! - and it got me thinking about princesses-"

Mamoru made hasty work of his filthy scrubs, tossing them into the laundry basket before embarking over to the bed.

"So I just had to buy a tiara for-"

Where did his pajamas go? He could've sworn he left them right over here, flush with the pillows.

"A lot of people think white when they think of royalty, but princesses,  _certain_  princesses, prefer pink, so I was thinking we should put-"

Mamoru crouched down and flipped up the low hanging quilt, releasing an aggrieved sigh as he spotted the miscreant sleepwear hiding underneath the bed. Now how did they get all the way over there!?

"...you know, Mamo-chan?"

Mamoru came back up with his prize and a sudden explosion of pain, having thoroughly conked himself on the wooden support beam. He swore voraciously.

" _Mamo-chan_!"

" _What_!?"

"You haven't been listening to a word I've been saying,  _have you_!?" Usagi was all fire and brimstone, hands planted quite imperiously upon her hips, and Mamoru was all set to snap a snarky reply back when he saw the hurt look in her eyes. He closed his mouth; gnashed his teeth. It didn't matter that he was at his wit's end with this day and that his head was throbbing fit to burst - he never wanted to be the cause of that look in his wife's eyes ever again. He'd brought her enough suffering for two lifetimes.

"I'm sorry."

Usagi moved her arms to over her chest, and blew the stubborn bangs from out of her eyes. She narrowed her azure blues at his knelt figure.

"You're hopeless, Mamo-chan!"

"I know."

Silence reigned for a moment's breath, where Usagi looked at Mamoru and Mamoru looked at Usagi. Then the woman's face brightened, and she clapped her hands together.

"No matter! Mamo-chan, put your clothes on. I have a surprise for you! It's in the kitchen!"

"A surprise in the kitchen?" Mamoru repeated, with just a hint of dubiety. He hoped Usagi hadn't tried to make him meatloaf again. That last batch really was deplorable. In fact, he was pretty sure he got food poisoning from it.

"Mm-hm!" Usagi chirruped, still wearing an expression as radiant as the sun, and Mamoru reevalauted his initial reservations. Maybe food poisoning wasn't so bad! He threw on his pajamas and hurried over to his wife, smiling when warm fingers wiggled their way over his eyes.

"This way!" she giggled, bumping him forward with her hips. He knew the path to the kitchen by heart; so many late nights at work promoted many late snacks after work, and he most often made that trek during the wee dark hours. Not that he let on as much to Usagi - Mamoru joyfully led them into just about every wall, playfully taking the twenty-one year old along with him.

"Whoooops!"

She cackled insatiably.

"Okay - we're here!" She dropped her hands and gestured toward the oven. "Inside - go see, go see!"

Mamoru cocked his brow at her boundless excitement before complying, easing open the range's door. His curiosity only deepened.

"Bread?"

"A  _bun_ ," Usagi said, with entirely too much gleeful emphasis for a particularly lumpy looking piece of baked dough. Mamoru peered a bit closer.

"Usako... why is the bun wearing a crown?"

"Because it's a bun-head! A royal bun-head!"

Mirth lined every inch of Mamoru's countenance. "Okay... and why is there a 'royal bun-head' in the oven, my darling Bun-Head?"

Usagi didn't say anything at all. She just continued to stare at him, with her big, beautifully blue eyes; eyes that seemed to be doing all the communicating her mouth wasn't.

And suddenly, it clicked. The lightbulb went on, the gears overloaded, and Mamoru's own eyes expanded to perhaps three times their original size. He felt like all the air had been evicted from his body; he didn't exist on this plane anymore. He was off on a cloud somewhere, watching the scene unfold from inconceivable heights.

"U-Usako?"

The blonde smiled, and he could see her tears welling. "Yes, Mamo-chan?"

"Is- is there really a... a bun in our oven?" he asked, breathlessly. He wasn't sure when he started to tremble, but he was.

"There is," Usagi confirmed, with an emotionally thick voice. She didn't break gaze as slowly, timidly, one hand came up to touch her stomach. That was all the provocation Mamoru needed to unravel completely. He sunk to the floor, legs gone boneless, but still he reached for the love of his life. She flung herself into his arms without a second thought, and for a moment, all they could do was cry.

"You're pregnant, we're pregnant, we're having a baby!" Mamoru sobbed, as the shock rolled away to reveal happiness he never knew possible. He grabbed Usagi's face and kissed her soundly. "Oh, I love you so much! I love you  _both_ so much!"

Usagi regarded him with shining eyes, his euphoric adulation reflected back at him with such intensity, he knew he would've needed to sit down if he wasn't already.

"I tried to make cone-shaped buns. See?" She pointed into the oven, at the horribly misshapen lumps on either side of the tiara. Usagi shrugged sheepishly. "They didn't come out so great. That's okay. I just wanted you to know... I think it's her. I think it's her, Mamo-chan."

Mamoru felt his tears begin to flow once more, the moisture on his cheeks unquenchable proof of his jubilation that he, an orphan, was about to become a father. A  _family_.

His ordinary Friday night was suddenly extraordinary.

**_Next Prompt_ : "Flowers"**


	4. Flowers

"Excuse me. Special delivery!  _Excuse_   _me_!"

The man struggled to get through the gaggle of giggling coquettes that had formed around him. Usagi rolled her eyes and stood up from her desk, for she knew exactly what and for whom he was here for. She was also pretty sure her coworkers, currently embarrassing themselves en masse by the entry, knew why as well. They were just enduringly hopeful, and Usagi couldn't blame them. Every woman dreamed to have just a taste of what she had. She would never deny that she was unfathomably lucky.

"Ladies -  _please_  - excuse me... I'm looking for Usagi Chiba. Is there a Mrs. Usagi Chiba here?"

"Here!" Usagi called, raising her hand, and the chittering throng seemed to deflate at that, then slowly dissipate. Usagi watched her coworkers pull pouts and wander back to their respective desks, some throwing her dirty looks while others winked, flashing a thumbs-up sign. She returned them all with apologetic smiles, but these were mostly a show of indulgence - inside, she felt pretty darn victorious.

The delivery man was visibly relieved to finally be able to move again. He approached Usagi with arms laden, and she blushed at what he brought, or more accurately, at how big what he brought was.

"Sixth one this week. You're a popular lady!" he crowed, lifting up the very colorful, very large bouquet in its opulent vase. "Where would you like it?"

"With the others, I suppose," Usagi chuckled, gesturing to her desk, which was beginning to more closely resemble a garden. She sat down to bury her nose in the fashionable array once the kindly old gentleman had left, relishing in the heady scent before lovingly pushing it over to join the other five.

"This is getting ridiculous," she bemoaned, with affectionate exasperation.

_Six_   _bouquets_ , she mused, running her hands across every vase.  _Six_   _bouquets_   _of_   _flowers_ ,  _and_   _six_   _days_   _since_   _we_   _found_   _out_.

They hadn't told anyone yet.

They would, soon. Friends and family first. The Inners and her parents were going to be absolutely and unequivocally over the moon. But for now - for now, it was wonderful to have this little secret between them that no one else in the world was privy to. Usagi got butterflies whenever she recalled the night she revealed her pregnancy to Mamoru. And if her desk was any indication, she wasn't the only one.

"Well, well, well. What have we here?"

Usagi started, frantically grappling for her pencil and picking it up, realizing she'd become incredibly remiss in her duties. She set drawing utensil back to paper, her portion of this week's manga, before glancing up like a penitent sinner. Apparently, the chagrin was utterly unnecessary. The Amazon-like woman standing in front of her desk, wearing in her auburn hair the tightest bun Usagi had ever seen, wasn't even looking at the blonde's work and its (sore lack of) progress. She was staring at the flowers.

"The intern got yet  _another_  delivery, did she?"

Usagi flushed, finding it easier to make eye contact with her knees. "Yes, Kibishi-sensei."

She peeked up, only to discover not criticism, but awe painted across her straight-laced boss' features. Kibishi Desu gave a low whistle.

"You must have one very happy husband at home, Chiba-san."

The room erupted into raucous snickers, but Usagi ignored the slightly off-color comment. She reached out to delicately stroke one soft petal with a meaningful smile.

"I do."

**_Next Prompt_ : "Opportunity"**


	5. Opportunity

It never seemed like the right opportunity.

The logistics of getting everyone together, in the same place at the same time, was much more complicated than it had been at fourteen. Ami was now an intern at Azabu General, the same hospital Mamoru worked at. She was the star resident, fast on her way to a medical license. Rei had taken over the shrine after her grandfather's health began to ail, but that didn't stop her from pursuing every other line of work that piqued her interest. She had joined Tokyo's premiere organizing committee, helping to orchestrate special events, from the cherry blossom festival to the Jidai Matsuri. She even sang for them, whenever performers fell through. Minako was just as versatile. Her singing aspirations had hit a temporary stall, with so many pop artists flooding the medium, but she still managed to land other gigs in the meantime. Whether it was TV commercials or modeling, the effervescent blonde always seemed to have her foot in the door. She was fast becoming the casting call favorite, and no one doubted that it wouldn't be long before her dream of becoming a star was reality. Then there was Makoto, sweet Makoto, who only ever wanted her own bakery melded with a florist shop, and who just two months ago had finally scored the perfect retail space. It was located in the bustling heart of downtown Tokyo, and as yet her most profitable venture was the addition of a delivery service - used most frequently, as late, by one Mamoru Chiba.

Life was good. Everyone was seeing their dreams come to fruition, slowly but surely. They knew eventually, ecological catastrophe would strike and Crystal Tokyo would dawn. Or maybe it wouldn't happen like that at all. Pluto always did swear by the frangibility of the time stream. Like ripples on water, all it took was one stone - one event - to change the course of the future in an instant. The battle with Nehelenia had been proof of that. But the girls weren't about to let their initial vision of the thirtieth century rule their lives; dictate their happiness. They stayed close, just in case the gang needed to be called back into action on a moment's notice (and because they couldn't bear to be too far apart from each other), but they were busy young adults now. Busy young adults who couldn't seem to find a time to meet up that worked for everybody until almost a month out, and that was just no bueno for one very excited Usagi Chiba and her tiny, five-weeks gestating progeny.

She would never claim to be a very patient person, and desperate times called for desperate measures.

Usagi cleared her throat; pounded her chest; played with modulating her vocal cords. Yep, still able to mount the decibel scale in three seconds flat! Once she deemed herself ready, the twenty-one year old pressed 'Call All' on her pink communicator.

"Girls!" she exclaimed breathlessly. "Girls, I need you! Please! Hurry!"

And then she settled back with a self-satisfied little smirk and waited.

It didn't take long.

Rei came careening through the door first, with the speed of a freight train. It went ricocheting off the wall, and Usagi cringed. Ooh, Mamoru wasn't going to be pleased if her Senshi put a hole through the drywall. Maybe she hadn't thought this out as thoroughly as she should have. The blonde stood with placating hands as Rei skidded into the living room demanding,

"What!? What is it!? Usagi, what's wrong!?"

Usagi opened her mouth, but she barely had time to mouth an apology before Makoto arrived, flour still caked in her hair and across her apron. She was so frantic, she too banged into the door. Usagi nervously bit her lip as she spied a hairline crack form at the point of impact. Mamoru wouldn't notice that, right? If she kept the lights dimmed at all times?

"Rei-chan... Usagi-chan! Are you hurt!?" Makoto advanced like a mother bear on the prowl and Usagi backed up a few steps, waving her upraised hands.

"Er, no, no, I... erm..."

Ami was next, having probably run a very impressive distance from the hospital to here. Usagi was beginning to feel just a little bit badly as the blue-haired pedantic raced into the apartment still in her dirty scrubs, and  _would no one mind that door_!?

"Usagi-chan, you called!?" the girl gasped, clutching her transformation rod in one hand and a stitch in the other. At this point, Rei seemed to have realized Usagi was not in as dire need as she had made out to be and was holding her forehead in one palm, grumbling obscenities under her breath. Makoto just blinked confusedly as a couple white flakes trickled off her ponytail.

"You called, didn't you!?" Ami repeated, cerulean eyes darting around the apartment like she expected a monster to pop out of the upholstery.

"I did," Usagi conceded slowly, now lowering her hands, but she began to reconsider the motion as Rei's face powered through every color of the rainbow. It stopped somewhere around mottled purple.

"And apparently, for no real reason," the priestess growled through bared teeth. A vein pulsed menacingly in her forehead as Usagi countered,

"I had a reason!"

"Oh,  _please_ , do enlighten us-"

Enlightenment was delayed indefinitely when Minako screeched in at last, and as always, her entrance was the most extravagant, jarring and headliner-grabbing of all.

"Oh my God, oh my God, Usagi-chan, you never call us on coms anymore, it must be something really-"

The door slammed open, hard, right into the wall again. Oh yeah. Mamoru wasn't going to miss that one. The gaping, knob-shaped crevice now gauged into the wall dripped with dislodged debris.

"...bad." Minako stared, first at the hole, then at the throng of Senshi, all in various states of disarray. She adjusted her skimpy little skirt and smoothed back the bow in her hair with an embarrassed blush. "Oops."

Usagi moaned, throwing her face into her hands. "Mamo-chan's gonna be  _so mad_ at me!"

"That is really not the issue here!" Rei snapped, folding her arms over her chest and going to loom over the smaller girl. "What exactly is the meaning of this, Usagi!?"

"It wasn't supposed to be like this," Usagi mumbled, peeking around at each Senshi in turn through the slits in her fingers.

"You mean there's no new enemy?" Makoto queried. "I almost had a heart attack!"

"I'm really sorry. I knew you guys would come. I just didn't think you'd come  _all at once_ , like... like  _that_ ," Usagi said, with an expansive gesture toward the doorway - or more aptly, the scene of destruction that she was definitely going to lose brownie points over. So much for all those flowers!

"Usagi-chan. It's you. Of course we'd drop everything and come," Ami intoned, gently. Usagi could feel a weepy smile filling her countenance. The initial excitement returned full force, and she began bouncing on the balls of her feet. Minako quirked an intrigued brow as she observed the display.

"You're fairly bursting with happiness. What's up, buttercup?"

"Yeah, what's so important that you had us bolting four plus miles in pure guttural panic to find your healthy, unharmed ass just lounging on the couch?" Rei sniffed, but with a considerably more relaxed stance and even a note of teasing in her voice, now that it was determined Usagi wasn't actually in grave mortal peril. It was hard to stay mad at the odangoed blonde when she looked so darn  _happy_. Usagi clasped her hands together and pressed them to her lips, as if that could tamper her elation into more manageable levels. It wasn't really working.

"I wanted you all together when I broke the news..." She paused, watching as a light of revelation sparked in her best friends' eyes, because there was only so much Usagi could say that would require everyone's presence, and at such short notice. Only so much that would elicit this much unmitigated joy in the reincarnated moon princess' features... "I'm pregnant!"

Mrs. Number Four down the hall would probably call to complain about the amount of noise that followed this announcement. For many moments, all was screams and hugs and even a few tears. The Senshi gathered round their leader with such hyperkinetic energy that she was briefly overwhelmed.

"Congrats, girl!" Makoto whooped, pounding the flaxen headed mother-to-be on the shoulder.

"You should have just said so in the first place! Now I feel terrible!" Rei moaned, dragging Usagi into a bone-crushing embrace. When she pulled back, Minako moved in. She poked her index into Usagi's midsection.

"I can't believe there's actually a baby in there!" the starlet squealed. "You're still so small!"

"Well I'm only five weeks," Usagi chuckled, gently clutching her belly.

"A first time mother will generally start showing after twelve weeks," Ami nodded, as if flicking through her internal encyclopedia. She grasped Usagi's hand and squeezed. " _Mother_. You're going to be a mother, Usagi-chan!"

Usagi exhaled shakily.

"A mother. I'm going to be a mother," she parroted back, and not without the accompanying thrill of terror she was quickly coming to expect, whenever reality sunk in. It was easy, when she couldn't see any visible signs yet, to forget just  _what_  pregnancy entailed... What it resulted in. Moments like these brought the idea home.

"Do you suppose it's Chibi-Usa-chan?" Makoto spoke up quietly, asking the question that was on everyone's minds. There was no denying the hope that resided inside her voice.

Usagi smiled. "I do."

Makoto's face exploded into a coruscating display of delight and relief. She laughed; a deep reverberating sound from the pit of her stomach. "She's coming back!"

"And she better be holding a wad of cash in her hand when she does, cause Mamo-chan is still gonna kill me," Usagi lamented, with a reproachful side-eye at the indented wall.

"Eheheh, I got you covered, Usagi-chan," Minako said, patting her friend with sheepish affection. "You just worry about growing my niece!"

**_Next Prompt_ : "Imagination"**


	6. Imagination

She was positively adorable when she was concentrating intensely on something.

She sat alone, curled into the window seat under the waxing rays of the sinking sun. Her tongue poked out like a turtle would from its shell, tentative and awkward, but her eyes were zeroed in on the sketchpad in front of her, and they held in them an inspired sort of spark. That spark fanned the flames of the inferno that raged inside Mamoru, whenever he watched his beloved at work.

He could never seem to wrap his head around the fact that this pulchritudinous young woman was  _his_.

And that now, she carried the proof beneath her very skin. Six weeks and three days, how had so much time passed, when he felt like it was just yesterday that she surprised him with her news of a 'royal bun-head' in the oven?

Usagi glanced up, and caught her paramour spying. She quirked a mischievous smile and beckoned him over. "Come see, come see!"

Mamoru floated to her side on legs that had never felt so alive. He knew he was grinning ear-to-ear as she shoved her latest creation in his face.

"Nursery blueprinting already, Usako?"

"I just can't stop thinking about how it will look," the expectant blonde squealed in a rush, and she presented her sketchpad into Mamoru's awaiting hands with the utmost of pride. Her countenance glowed as she continued, "I started it at work in my downtime, and, well... it all just sort of escalated from there!"

Mamoru examined the picture that Usagi had been bringing to life with such painstaking detail. Her talent for the arts had always astounded him, but it had really reached a peak during these post-graduate years of interning at a manga illustrator's office. He burst out laughing as his eyes took in the majesty of Usagi's drawing, and her conception of what their child's nursery should entail. She certainly had some wildly outlandish and unequivocally unique ideas...

"Usako, is that... is that a bouncy castle? With a slide?"

"It'll go right into her crib, see?" Usagi nodded, with avid fervor. She traced the path with her finger. "So she can play, then when she's tired,  _fwooop_ , all snuggly in bed!"

Mamoru had to bite his lip to keep the mirth at bay, or else he was going to dissolve into a hysterical puddle on the floor. "And this?"

"Sand pit. For her and her playmates. Of which I'm sure there will be many!"

"Next to it?"

"Stuffed animal zoo!"

"Is that for her or for you?" Mamoru queried, and there was a knowing gleam in his darkly midnight-blue eyes.

"Psh. One can never have enough stuffed animals," Usagi postulated, neatly side-stepping the question.

"Our closet is testament to that!" Mamoru said, with playful indulgence in his reluctant concession. He peered a little closer. "Oh my - a pool!?"

"It'd be very safe. We'd keep it gated off with the most cutting edge of security! Imperial levels!"

"But why would there need to be a pool in the nursery?"

"For us. Duh!" Usagi rolled her eyes.

"Right," Mamoru smirked, and he cocked a brow, still playing along. "Now how exactly will we fit all this in our apartment's spare room, Usako?"

"Oh, we'll worry about that when we get to it," Usagi chuckled, waving a nonchalant hand. "Where there's a will, there's a way!"

"You certainly have a vivid imagination," Mamoru teased, but it was wrapped beneath a very sincere compliment. His eyes were deep oceans of reverent affection as he handed back the bun-headed blonde's sketchpad. Usagi sat up straighter, clutching the artwork to her bosom, and her face became serious for the first time that conversation.

"I want to give her everything. The whole world, if she wants it," Usagi said, voice dropping into a loving croon. Then she looked down, a bit bashfully, and her grip tightened around the spiral-bound wires of the sketchpad.

"Then the world it is, for our little princess," Mamoru agreed, his fingers brushing over hers.

Though maybe not the bouncy-castle-slide-sand-pit-zoo-pool in the nursery.

**_Next Prompt_ : "Saturday"**


	7. Saturday

"Ow! Usako! What was that for?" Mamoru hissed, rubbing at his calf, which had just received a very swift kick from underneath the table.

"You were doing it again," Usagi mouthed, side-eying the door into the kitchen, where her parents were clearing out the dishes to make way for dessert. From the smells of it, a delicious homemade blueberry pie. If the young squabbling couple weren't so preoccupied, they would've been salivating shamelessly, like two starved pups.

"Doing  _what_?" Mamoru winced, still ministrating to his poor abused leg.

"Twisting at the tablecloth. You're gonna send the candles flying! Honestly, Mamo-chan, you're worse than a preteen girl on her first date!"

"Excuse me for being nervous to tell your father I knocked up his baby girl," Mamoru grumbled, but he knew his Usako had a point, so he let his hands fall into his lap to jitter restlessly there.

"There's absolutely nothing to worry about," Usagi assured, firmly but gently. She turned her twin pools of warm azure Mamoru's direction and smiled. "Do you know how long Mama and Papa have been hounding me for a grandchild? They'll be over the moon!"

Mamoru had to concede that Usagi was probably right. He  _shouldn't_  be this on edge. Usagi's parents were lovely people, who had accepted him into the family with open arms. Sure, Kenji had been a little terrifying at first. The magazine editor-in-chief was initially wary of seeing his daughter off to the alter so young - until Ikuko reminded him that  _they_  had wed at nearly the same age. That had warmed him right up, enough that Mamoru figured maybe he was safe to walk the streets alone again, without fear of encountering the barrel of a shotgun. They began the tradition of dinner every first Saturday of the month, and slowly but surely, Mamoru had learned to relax in the presence of his new in-laws.

Until today.

"After they dump my body in the river, maybe," Mamoru groused, but it was with a playful gleam in his midnight-blue eyes.

"They wouldn't do that to their grandchild!" Usagi snickered ebulliently into her hand. Their mirth was short-lived, however.

"Whose grandchild?" Ikuko Tsukino's voice cut through their laughter. The pair froze, staring at each other in abject horror. They had forgotten they had an audience.

" _Whose_  grandchild?" Ikuko asked again, more loudly, and with a tremulous undertone now creeping into her query. Usagi and Mamoru turned slowly, to see the benevolent Tsukino matriarch standing stock still in the doorway of the kitchen, blueberry pie held precariously between two trembling oven mitts. Behind her, Kenji was staring at them like a mortal man would a specter.

Usagi slapped a hand over her mouth in probably the worst, most telling reaction possible. She looked petrified. In any other situation, Mamoru might've been inclined to toss out a snarky little, "Who's scared  _now_?" But he felt just as deer-in-the-headlights as she.

Usagi swallowed painfully. It made a resounding suctioning noise and Mamoru cringed.

"Your grandchild," she whispered, with an ingenuous grace.

Mamoru never moved so fast as when he did then. The world seemed to slow as he jumped up and threw himself across the floor, cat-like (Kamen-like, really) reflexes kicking in as he reached the plummeting blueberry pie just in the nick of time. Ikuko hardly noticed; she only had eyes for her daughter. Her bright indigo depths filled with evidence of her intense emotions.

"You're pregnant?" she gasped, with hushed, almost reverent cadence.

Usagi was getting just as teary. She gave a great big watery smile and touched her stomach. "Seven weeks today!"

Ikuko released a muffled exclamation of complete and untempered joy. She descended on the bun-headed blonde like a lioness would her cub, and for many long moments, the women just cried and lost themselves in the euphoria of the other. Mamoru was beginning to feel intrusive, the outsider, when a solid weight landed on his shoulder. He looked up, past a strong arm, into the shining face of Kenji Tsukino.

"Best to just let them be when they're like that," he intoned, with equal parts amusement and commiseration. The dark-haired, thickly-spectacled patriarch nodded his head at the hot dessert dish still clutched in Mamoru's saving grasp. "You want to put that down?"

"Oh - er - yeah," Mamoru responded, a bit dumbly. He got up off the floor and transferred the pie onto the counter. He barely had time to turn before he was wrapped in Kenji's deceptively powerful grip. Usagi's father clapped his hand against the small of Mamoru's back.

"You have made me the happiest man... son," Kenji said, gruffly. Mamoru squeezed his eyes shut against the sudden onslaught of emotion that besieged his senses at that pronouncement. No one had ever called him that before. At least that he could remember. It was a heady sensation - proof of belonging.

"Thank you, sir."

"Papa. Call me Papa."

**_Next Prompt_ : "Escape"**


	8. Escape

Usagi had just closed out on her ninth week of pregnancy, and at a hair past the two month mark, she was beginning to notice the telltale signs of life growing inside her. Mornings now brought the vaguest sense of nausea. She had trouble feeling as much interest in breakfast as she normally would, but come the afternoon, she was ravenous as a bear post-hibernation. Mood swings were also starting to rear their ugly head - just yesterday, Usagi cried for half an hour over Mamoru accidentally putting their big ladling spoons away into the wrong spot. She had been so embarrassed afterward, but her patient young husband took it in stride. He assured the bun-headed blonde this was normal - her hormones were going to be out of whack for a while, as they adjusted to the many changes taking place inside her body.

The biggest change of all was one entirely unexpected.

Usagi hadn't been aware that pregnancy could also produce a heightened sex drive. She and Mamoru had always had what she deemed a "healthy" relationship inside the bedroom. They regularly lost themselves in the act of love, numerous days out of the week.

But dear God.

She wanted him  _all. the. time._  now!

It didn't take much. All he had to do was  _stand next_  to her and she felt the stirrings of lust, coiling deep in the pit of her belly. One smile, aimed her direction, and she was putty on feet... ready and dying to jump his bones in the closest alcove. It was a whole new level of eroticism, more intense than she had ever experienced.

And it was driving her  _crazy_.

What made it worse, this unforeseen little side effect had an uncanny knack for showing its face during the most horribly inconvenient of times. Mornings when Usagi should've been getting ready for work. Lunch break. During the best part of her favorite TV show.

...Mamoru's fancy holiday work party.

Oh yes.

Right in his place of employment, surrounded by buttoned up professionals and women in their ballroom finest. Doctors, nurses, interns... even the big wigs, you name it, they were here. The expectant blonde could even see Ami across the vast expanse of festively decorated lobby, primly leading one of her department heads in what was undoubtedly riveting, completely-Greek-to-Usagi academic conversation. The short-haired erudite in flowing shades of soft cream spied her best friend's stare, and offered up a cheerful wave.

Usagi waved back and tried not to look too robotic about it. It was just that her mind was one hundred percent elsewhere, with all one hundred percent of that elsewhere currently focused on a drop-dead doctor in his midnight colored tuxedo, approaching from the side with two champagne glasses in hand. Usagi's heart sped up to three times its usual rate. It never failed to amaze her that this graceful, charming paladin of a man was  _hers_.

"You look tense," Mamoru commented softly, passing his jittery wife her share of the liquid gold. "Don't worry - it's non-alcoholic."

Usagi accepted the libation with a nod and a giant swig. Mamoru cocked his lips and one amused brow at the zeal with which she downed an entire half of the drink. When she resurfaced, all pink-cheeked and sparkly-eyed, he smiled even more.

"You are radiant tonight," Mamoru said, fingering the fabric of her sheer forest-green dress. It was an anniversary gift and one of Usagi's favorites, hugging her curves in all the right places.

"Thank you," the bun-headed woman replied, breathlessly. She could feel herself flushing hot and cold all over as the look in Mamoru's eyes darkened; became hungry. Dammit. Didn't he know how  _unstable_  she was right now!?

"Mistletoe," the black-haired Adonis purred, pointing to a sprig of the bright viridian plant that was positioned just over Usagi's head. The girl cursed, which Mamoru took to be playful evasiveness. He had  _no_  idea.  _No_  idea the beast he was uncaging. Usagi fairly threw down her champagne onto the nearest table as Mamoru grabbed at her waist and pulled the small blonde in.

It was no chaste kiss - not even close.

Usagi didn't care that she was in the middle of all Mamoru's coworkers. Her lips ravaged her beloved's as if they were reuniting from a months long stint apart and not a mere five minutes. She reveled in the sensory overload, drowning in him and her and the powerful electricity that crackled between them whenever they came together like this. It was intoxicating - her favorite kind of drug. She never wanted the magic to end.

Mamoru pulled back first, gasping for air. He looked just as disoriented as she felt, and his hands kept clenching against Usagi's sides like it was costing him every ounce of willpower not to drag her back into his arms and continue where they left off.

Usagi possessed no such willpower.

She yanked his face back down to hers with wild eyes.

"What do you say we escape this stodgy affair?"

"W-what?" Mamoru stuttered, still gazing at her as if through a heavy haze.

"I'll break it down into tiny little words for you," Usagi growled, huskily, now only millimeters away from her husband's perfectly chiseled features. "You. Me. Broom closet.  _Now_."

Mamoru didn't need to be told twice.

He grabbed up his very horny wife's hand, and the pair nearly bolted from the room. They were not sighted again for the rest of the night.

...Except by one thoroughly appalled maintenance custodian.

**_Next Prompt_ : "Harmony"**


	9. Harmony

"Alright you two... now that we're sure Baby Chiba is growing strong and healthy, are you ready to hear the heartbeat?"

It was the moment Mamoru had been waiting for the entire visit. He could feel Usagi's nimble fingers squeezing his in response, her grip tight and almost painful, despite the way his hand dwarfed her own. She looked so excited she could burst. Figuratively speaking, of course. Her shirt was pulled up over her stomach, but she was only just barely beginning to show, ten-and-a-half weeks having brought the slightest swell to her abdomen. It was probably the most adorable little baby bump Mamoru had ever seen in his entire life, and it was all he could do not to follow his wife around trying to cradle it every moment he spent awake.

"This might feel just a smidge cold," the pleasant-faced doctor, Kotono Shurui, warned, before lathering gel onto Usagi's bare tummy. She squealed at the sensation but like a good patient, didn't disrupt the process by jerking or otherwise moving unnecessarily. Mamoru was proud.

Dr. Shurui began maneuvering the transducer over Usagi's slick skin. For a few moments, all was silence, save for the clicks and whirs of the ultrasound machinery. Usagi and Mamoru stared breathless, waiting for their daughter to pop up on the screen. Their forbearance was soon rewarded as the transducer wand honed in on the tiny life growing inside the bun-headed blonde.

_Ba-dum. Ba-dum. Ba-dum. Ba-dum._

Mamoru's throat started to constrict.

"Is... is that her?" Usagi asked, shakily. Her hand was trembling inside Mamoru's.

"That's your baby!" Dr. Shurui confirmed, turning her warm and curious gaze onto the couple. "Think it's a girl, huh?"

Usagi blushed; Mamoru knew she was aware that any modern day ultrasound technician could not tell for another couple months the sex of their baby. But, modern day ultrasound technicians couldn't boast having experienced the power of time travel, either.

"It's just a feeling," Usagi murmured, appraising with shimmering eyes the flickering black-and-white image broadcasted onto the screen. It was vaguely alien-like, with no discerning features as yet to provide claim of relation to Usagi or Mamoru. But Mamoru knew all the same that this was his Chibi-Usa, as surely as Usagi did.

The man closed his eyes, just listening.

_Ba-dum. Ba-dum. Ba-dum. Ba-dum._

He could feel his own heart, drumming away a steady cadence, to match that of the child's on the monitor.

And deeper, much deeper, inside himself - there was another.

_Ba-dum. Ba-dum. Ba-dum. Ba-dum._

There always had been, but it wasn't until a spirited young girl with streaming blonde buns for hair tossed a crumpled test his direction that he finally began to take notice of it.

They'd been connected from the start - two souls sharing the same rhythm; two heartbeats riding the same frequency.

_Ba-dum. Ba-dum. Ba-dum. Ba-dum._

And now, a new melody, joined with theirs. An offshoot of the original song, but with a unique voice all its own.

They were three hearts, beating in tandem.

It was a beautiful harmony, the purest music, reverberating into every nook and cranny of Mamoru's soul.

It was the sound of love.

**_Next Prompt_ : "Offspring"**


	10. Offspring

Usagi ran a gentle thumb over the sonogram picture clutched in her hand. It was well-worn; unsurprising, given that it lived outside of Usagi's purse more than in. The blonde smiled softly, closing her eyes to ward against the chill of the breeze. It was January now; a cold, damp mess of a day, and Usagi was spending her lunch break outside at the park. It might not have been the best weather for such outings, but it sure beat hanging at the office, getting sick off the smell of other peoples' bentos. At thirteen weeks, the unpleasant side effects of being pregnant were coming in a deluge now. It would seem sensitivity to any form of malodor, potent or no, was the latest in her long list of grievances against this kid and the havoc she was wreaking upon Usagi's body.

Not that the benign twenty-one year old regretted a thing. She would gladly suffer all nine months if it came to that, to see this child born into good health. Usagi rubbed her belly; the minute swell of flesh beneath her fingers proof of the life inside.

It would be so cool when she could finally feel Chibi-Usa kick and move.

"I imagine it's rather a strange sensation," an amicable voice said, from above Usagi. The expectant blonde jumped, startled.

"Setsuna-san!"

The aforementioned guardian of space and time quirked her lips into a genial expression of greeting. She looked lovely today; her juniper peacoat and maroon ascot pleasing accentuation to her long, dark violet colored locks. Usagi had to shake herself from staring embarrassingly, always having been a bit besotted by this woman who wore enigma like a cloak. She patted the seat beside her on the bench.

"Please, sit down! I didn't know I was thinking out loud again... I've been doing that a lot lately," Usagi giggled, sheepishly knocking her knuckles against the hard of her head.

"Pregnancy brain," Setsuna mused. "Ami-san would have a field day on the subject."

"Rei-chan would probably say I was always like this," Usagi grumbled, complete with a playful grimace at mention of her priestess friend's name. Of course, anyone who actually knew Usagi and Rei knew their bickering was simply a poor cover hiding deep affection for the other.

"I'm not sure I wouldn't agree with her, today," Setsuna said, with the merest suggestion of light scolding lurking in the depths of her comment.

Usagi looked over, surprised.

"Isn't it a touch nippy for the future queen and her heir to be out and about?" Setsuna elucidated, gesturing to the steam undulating from her mouth with one perfectly arched brow.

The bun-headed woman beside Setsuna shrugged, demeanor gone bashful as she ducked her head and twiddled her thumbs. "I get sick of being cooped up. And the office is smelly.  _Everything's_  smelly."

A little girl whooped in the distance, drawing the attention of the pair on the bench. For a few moments, they just watched her, her and her doting mother, the only other two foolish - or brave enough, depending on who you asked - to withstand the afternoon's biting zephyr. The sight sparked a fuse inside Usagi's mind, and before she knew it, all the fears that had been keeping her up at night came tumbling out of her mouth at dizzying speed.

"You said 'future queen and her heir' - does that mean Crystal Tokyo is still coming? Is that why we haven't seen or heard from any of the Outers since my wedding? Are you preparing? Do they know what's going on? And is - is my heir still Chibi-Usa, or am I supposed to have other children first? Will I have her at all?" Usagi's brilliantly expressive blue eyes widened as an unnameable terror gripped hold of her heart. "I know the future's never certain, but couldn't - please, Setsuna-san, couldn't you give me just a - a hint?"

Setsuna regarded her royal charge with unmitigated patience, her soulful burgundy eyes aged like a fine wine as she seemed to mull Usagi's panicked queries over in her almost-but-not-quite omniscient mind. "I don't know everything myself. Crystal Tokyo may be or it may not be - but as yet all signs indicate that we are still on the correct trajectory."

"And Chibi-Usa?" Usagi pressed, inching closer to her companion. She hardly noticed that she had gathered up a fistful of Setsuna's scarf, and was kneading the fibers with compulsive abandon.

"I can confirm that the baby is indeed Small Lady," Setsuna smiled warmly, patting Usagi's agitated fingers. The twenty-one year old relaxed at that. It had been a constant concern, niggling in the back of her mind, ever since those two lines materialized into being. The possibility that what if she were wrong? What if she  _wasn't_  carrying her darling little pink-haired spore, and it was another child, the one Usagi grew up alongside and came to love more than her life itself now lost to the fickle machinations of time?

"Oh thank God. I hadn't planned for any color besides pink. Maybe next time!" the reincarnated moon princess tittered in relieved jest. Setsuna hesitated then, just visibly enough for Usagi to catch wind. "Setsuna-san. What? What aren't you telling me?"

The revolution warrior had the grace to look chagrined at her slip-up. "You are far more perceptive than others give you credit, Usagi-sama."

Usagi threw Setsuna a funny look; it was the first time the older woman had ever added the "-sama" honorific onto her name, and it was the slightest bit unsettling. One generally only did so in distinguished company, and Usagi had never truly considered herself that... even though the day was soon coming.

"There will be no others," Setsuna said, quietly. She tilted her head and endowed upon Usagi a most sorrow-laden gaze; one that Usagi felt penetrating into her very core. She swallowed tightly.

"You're saying - I won't ever bear another child?"

Setsuna averted her eyes then, voice heavy. "It is the burden of your lunar lineage. The Silver Crystal is a sentient being; self-serving. It will ensure that it is only ever passed to one child, a daughter, born of the female rulers of the Silver Millennium. As soon as you ascend to the throne as Neo-Queen Serenity, you will be rendered infertile. After that, it will be Small Lady's duty to continue the line when she too comes of age."

Usagi felt cold all over. The knowledge that had just been bestowed upon her was something she had indeed pondered, but until now always brushed aside as mere superstition. To have confirmation... it was painful. She was only ever going to experience pregnancy once?

Usagi closed her eyes and squeezed her bump tight. She felt Setsuna's hand come down to encompass her shoulder.

"It's not fair," Usagi whispered. "What if I wanted brothers and sisters for her?"

"The Silver Crystal is a wonderful force of light, life, and love, Usagi-sama, there is no denying. But for all the miracles it grants, one must always remember that nature demands balance, and all power comes at a price. As the wielder of this stone, unfortunately, it is you who must pay the price, so that others may continue to benefit from its healing properties. It is both blessing... and curse."

Usagi was silent for many interminable moments, drowning in the cavalcade of emotions this revelation evoked. There was definitely grief, swirling dark and repugnant in the hollow pit of her stomach. But even now, Usagi's internal brightness shone through like a lighthouse's beacon in foggy night. She could feel burgeoning within her a reluctant acceptance; understanding of her role and the Crystal's necessity in society. She resolved then and there to appreciate every second of this pregnancy to its fullest extent; if Chibi-Usa was going to be her only offspring, then Usagi would lavish her with all the love, all the attention, her enormous heart was capable of providing. Her daughter was never going to want for anything, she swore it on her honor as a Serenity.

Setsuna reached over and chucked the younger woman under her chin, shaking her from the dregs of reverie. "I'm sorry for the shock. I do so very despise always having to be the bearer of bad news. Regarding the other Outers - I do know where they are, and what they're up to. Due to the clandestine nature of their current... mission, it may not be right away, but would you like me to set up a meeting with them? Would that help cheer you up, my princess?"

Usagi's azures lit up like a child's at Christmas. "Oh yes! Would you, please? I've missed them so much! Ohhh, thank you, Setsuna-san!"

She flung her arms around her much taller companion, and grinned happily as Setsuna followed suit, hoping her friend knew there weren't any hard feelings. The Senshi of Pluto had a difficult lot in life, and Usagi could only imagine how terrible it must be, to possess forewarning of future events but no clarity as to which would actually come to pass. She certainly didn't envy Setsuna's position, nor did she feel inclined to "shoot the messenger", when it was obvious said messenger felt absolutely awful delivering her sad tidings. Usagi pulled back out of their embrace.

"Do they... you know...  _know_?" she asked, pointing at her mid-drift in such a way that made Setsuna chuckle.

"I think it's safe to say your being 'in the family way' will be a very pleasant homecoming surprise," the genteel guardian of time quipped coyly, prompting a new burst of excitement from Usagi. She loved seeing the joy on her friends' faces when they learned the news!

"I can't wait to tell Mamo-chan," Usagi enthused. Suddenly, she gasped, gaze on her wristwatch. "Oh crap! I gotta get back. Setsuna-san, it was  _lovely_  to see you. Please, come visit me -  _us_  - again soon!"

"You are too kind," Setsuna demurred, with a bowed head. No doubt remembering how their conversation had devolved... Usagi would have none of it.

"I mean it. Anytime," she insisted, and this time it was her who gently clasped the other woman under the chin. Usagi beamed when Setsuna finally made eye contact. "Mamo-chan and I would be thrilled to have your company."

Setsuna smiled, a pink blush settling over her nose and cheeks. "Thank you, Usagi-sama."

Usagi bopped her bunned head in a vivacious display of both approval and farewell. She turned to leave, hurry back to the office up the road, when Setsuna's gloved hand caught the sleeve of her jacket. Usagi looked back, perplexed.

There was a strange glint in Setsuna's mauve eyes; one that Usagi couldn't quite decipher, but it was intensely disquieting all the same.

"Hold on to him. When things gets hard, and all seems bleak... hold on to him."

Setsuna dropped Usagi's arm. The blonde gulped, nodded brusquely, and braced herself for the wind as she made a hasty departure - trying not to show how very shaken she felt.

She noticed Setsuna said "when" not "if".

**_Next Prompt_ : "Scrumptious"**


	11. Scrumptious

He found her in the living room, lounging lengthwise on the couch, surrounded in used wrappers, open snack bags, and a veritable armada of crumbs. Perhaps this scene would've sent his 'neat freak' tendencies into overdrive on any normal day, but for some reason, today felt special.

Mamoru couldn't explain it.

Maybe it was the way she sat, like she had not a care in the world, one leg off the couch and bouncing, the other stretched out but also struggling to remain at rest - clearly enjoying the effects of an intense sugar rush.

Maybe it was the way she had pushed up her lacy tank, so that she was showing off an adorably small fourteen weeks baby bump - Mamoru hopelessly unable to stop admiring the way the skin had pulled taunt over her precious cargo. She was probably the envy of pregnant women everywhere, eating everything in sight yet so far only having gained weight in the places where it mattered.

Maybe it was the way she was savoring the cupcake currently clutched in her right hand, tongue making slow, teasing motions over the frosting until Mamoru felt ready to faint with the unintentional seduction of it all.

Whatever the reason, Mamoru said nothing about the mess, just stood like a lovesick loon in the doorway until his own personal temptress noticed him staring.

Leering, more like.

"What?" Usagi asked, the very picture of innocence. She held up her half-digested sweet. "She's hungry!"

Mamoru cocked a querulous brow.

"I think it's her mother who's hungry," he tried to say with sardonic aplomb, but it came out more of a helpless croak. Usagi had gone back to foreplaying the cupcake.

It really wasn't fair.

"Mako-chan brought me these at work. They're positively  _scrumptious_!" the bright-eyed blonde giggled, fairly impaling the middle of the cake with her fervid tongue. Mamoru watched as a small dribble of frosting went belly-up, dripping onto Usagi's bare stomach, and at that point the man could not be held accountable for his actions any longer.

He shoved the wrappers aside like loose paper off a desk. Crumbs flew, chips scattered everywhere, but they could be cleaned later. Nothing was important in his haste to get to Usagi.

The bunned beauty let out a surprised squeal as Mamoru landed on top of her, though he was careful not to disturb her stomach. Oh no, he had other plans for that stomach!

Mischievous blue eyes peeked up at Usagi from beneath a sheath of ebony fringe. "Do you know what else is  _scrumptious_?"

Mamoru bent down and flicked out his own tongue.

"You."

Usagi gasped and squirmed as her husband lapped up every inch of the miscreant icing. He in turn reveled in the power he had over her, treasuring every little shiver and moan she released while under the throes of his touch.

The cupcake fell to the floor, quickly forgotten, and shortly followed by a parade of clothes.

There were far sweeter things to nibble on instead.

**_Next Prompt_ : "Silly"**


	12. Silly

February arrived, and brought with it one of the biggest snowfalls Tokyo had seen in years. For days, hapless citizens were boarded up in their homes as they waited for the inclement weather to abate. When it finally did, no one was more ready to escape the confines of four walls than Usagi Chiba.

"Mamo-chan, seriously, I'll be fine," she reassured, for probably the fifth time since announcing her intentions to go out and get a jump on nursery shopping. They had made a lot of headway in the little spare room that would now house their impending bundle of joy, stuck as they were during that storm, but it still looked pretty barren to Usagi. In lieu of bouncy castles and pools (which, Usagi had pointed out with a playful pout to her husband, they had yet to allot space for), she wanted to scope out potential cribs and rockers.

"I know," Mamoru sighed, in the middle of wiping paint primer off his hands from the nursery's open doorway. "And I know it's better if you're out of the apartment and away from the fumes while I paint. But I still worry."

Usagi smiled at him as she slipped into her heavy winter jacket and wiggled on gloves, hat and scarf. "Which is one of the many, many reasons why I love you so much."

"Call if you run into trouble?" Mamoru pleaded.

Usagi donned her trademark 'I'll punish you!' pose from the entry hall. "Trouble runs from  _me_!"

"I mean it, Usako!" Mamoru hollered, but Usagi had already blown a kiss and shut the door on his exasperation. She appreciated his concern, she really did. And usually, she indulged it. But Mamoru's already overprotective tendencies had only gotten more pronounced as the months passed and her belly grew, and sometimes, she just needed a break from the constant hovering.

Sometimes, all she wanted was to be silly and carefree again.

Usagi sighed as she adjusted the shoulder strap on her purse to shift some of the weight, but it did nothing for that which plagued her mind. A heavy pall had descended upon her this past week, borne from cabin fever, or maybe it was mood swings. Or even Setsuna's warning, that definitely still caused her undue anxiety. Usagi really didn't know. But whatever the reason, she had swung on an emotional pendulum all week, ranging from cranky and stressed to downright shrew. She  _needed_  this excursion. A change of pace - a chance to  _breath_.

She exited the apartment complex and made for Main Street. It was fairly quiet for a Thursday, with few wayfarers, most having cleared during the morning commute or found warmer stomping grounds indoors. She flitted in and out of furniture stores, wandering aimlessly, checking price tags and often choking at what she read. Usagi was starting to feel a bit hopeless, her trip wasted, when suddenly, she stopped. Standing in front of the toy store, display window positively bursting with bright lights, vibrant colors and cute stuffed things, she had an epiphany.

Why was she wasting energy on something that was just making her miserable? That wasn't her. That wasn't how she went about life. All at once, it was like the weight from before was lifted off Usagi, and the woman grinned broadly. She could still be a responsible mother-to-be, without sacrificing the little things that brought her so much joy. Otherwise, what was the sense in growing up? Feeling lighter than she had in a week, Usagi skipped into the store, a spring in every step as she reevaluated her priorities. The crib and rocking chair could wait; wait until she had Mamoru by her side to help with finances, color matching and the like. But this,  _this_  was what  _she_  was good at.

Usagi cooed and giggled as she admired the many trinkets and fawned over the teeny infant onesies. She took great care to pick out a loving array of gifts for her now seventeen-weeks grown daughter, and when she was finally finished, she departed the children's store arms laden and fully content.

The fresh air felt wonderful. Flurries danced like powdered sugar in a breeze, and Usagi opened her mouth wide, endeavoring to catch a taste of the cold moisture before it melted on her tongue. The sun was high in the sky, coruscating in its intensity, beams reflecting every which way off the equally as blinding white snow. It was the breathtakingly beautiful kind of day where one felt privileged just to be alive, and Usagi felt that inside her too, brewing and bubbling and brimming over until she couldn't stand to keep composure any longer. The bunned blonde whooped, spinning herself and her bags in every direction, reveling in how ridiculous she felt. She was probably starting to attract stares - she didn't care. They should join her. They should all feel what it is to be silly - to reclaim that piece of childhood so many lost in the race to become "mature".

Usagi's boot skidded over a surprise patch of ice. She yelped as she lost control and went immediately down, toppling backwards into a fluffy wet pile of snow. Her bags landed along with her, new purchases sent helter skelter in the melee. She cursed in a grumble under her breath.

"What on earth are you doing?"

Usagi squinted, up, up, up past three humanoid shapes darkened by the sun, and though she couldn't quite make out their faces from her supine position, she knew exactly who had come to her rescue.

"Haruka-san! Michiru-san! Hotaru-chan!"

"You look like you need a lift up," Haruka chuckled wryly, bending even closer, so that her sandy bangs fell into her eyes.

"Please!" Usagi laughed, gasping when Haruka reached down and, with only two hands under each armpit, put Usagi onto both feet. The twenty-one year old forgot sometimes, just how strong her fellow blonde ally was.  _Like Mako-chan._

She squealed and burrowed herself deep into the brawny older woman's grasp. "I can't believe you came!"

"Just in time, too. What were you doing over there, dancing?"

"Something like that."

"You're silly. Never change, Kitten."

Usagi had a private smile at that. She was just about to ask if it was Setsuna who sent them when Michiru's voice rang out -

" _Woah_. Usagi-san, what... who are these for?"

There was suspicion in the furrow of her brow as the aqua-haired violinist and her de facto daughter, kneeling amidst the scattered spoils of Usagi's shopping spree, raised up on display tiny pink dresses in all their frilly glory, as well as a sundry assortment of pacifiers, bibs, teething rings and plush bunnies.

Haruka rounded on Usagi with wide eyes, which immediately flicked down to scrutinize her midsection. Well into her second trimester, it was nearly impossible now to hide the pregnancy, slight of figure as she was... but the bulky down jacket was doing a pretty darn good job. Usagi decided to take pity on the trio of Outers, particularly Haruka, who looked ready to have a coronary if she wasn't given answers,  _now_.

"Chibi-Usa, of course," Usagi grinned, patting the cushioned swell of her belly.

"We  _have_  been gone too long," Michiru smirked at Haruka, before declaring, "That's  _wonderful_  news, Usagi-san!"

Hotaru had gone full-on waterworks. She beamed at Usagi from beneath her shock of black hair, fingers swiping at her weeping eyes.

"So my best friend's back at last," she sniffled happily. "You look so beautiful, Usagi-san. You're glowing!"

"And, you're covered in snow!" Haruka growled, in her own loving way. Her hands were shaking with suppressed emotion as she began sweeping the white flakes off Usagi's jacket. "What are you trying to do, catch hypothermia? Cripple yourself on the ice?"

Usagi rather thought Haruka's overprotectiveness would give Mamoru's overprotectiveness a run for its money. "Now  _you're_  being silly! I'm pregnant, not an invalid. It's just snow - I won't break!"

"Oh, I'll break  _something_  if you pull that kind of stunt again, so help me Odango Atama!"

"Alright, alright! Duly noted!" Usagi sniggered into her hand. She pulled Hotaru in to tousle the teen's hair, then linked arms with Haruka and Michiru. "If you're so hellbent on getting me out of the cold, come have lunch with me. You can tell me all about this 'clandestine mission' Setsuna-san ordered you three on-"

"Ah, but if we told you, we'd have to kill you," Michiru intoned sweetly, as Haruka tapped the side of her nose with a devil-may-care gleam in her eyes.

"-and I can tell you all about how I've  _finally_  stopped having to hug the toilet every morning!"

"Oy oy."

"It's true. She never changes!"

**_Next Prompt_ : "Never"**


	13. Never

"Man, what a night! We need to do this again sometime," Motoki said, clapping Mamoru on the back in the hallway outside the latter's apartment. "Before, you know, you're arms deep in dirty diapers and baby spit-up!"

Mamoru chuckled, stumbling a moment on his feet when Motoki's hand connected, but that did nothing to dissuade his good cheer. Which probably had something to do with the round of drinks they just downed at the local pub earlier that evening. "What, you don't think it'll be a good look on me?"

Motoki grinned toothily. "I think it'll be a  _great_  look on you. You pull off 'harried housewife' so well."

Mamoru punched his best friend in the shoulder, giving a raucous scoffing noise. "Jerk."

Motoki smirked in response, but then his face softened. "I mean it though. You'll make one hell of a papa. No child would be luckier."

Mamoru quieted at that pronouncement. He swallowed thickly.

"Thanks, buddy. You've no idea how reassuring that is to hear," he said around the golf ball in his throat. Motoki smiled, generously patting the man once more.

"No problem, Mamoru-kun. Now, I think it's best I head out before this moment gets any more sappy. I'm sure your lovely wife is anxiously awaiting your return as we speak!" Motoki jerked his head toward the apartment door. "Give Usagi-chan my love!"

"And mine to Reika-chan's," Mamoru replied politely. Then a devilish gleam entered his periwinkle-hued eyes, just as Motoki began to amble a touch unsteadily over to the elevator. "I wonder if she has any idea how well you table-dance whenever 'Girls Just Wanna Have Fun' comes on?"

The horrified look in Motoki's eyes when he turned back was priceless.

"You wouldn't!" he gasped, aghast.

"I would, if you ever compare me to a 'harried housewife' again," Mamoru rebutted smoothly. He cocked an amused brow as Motoki gave a theatrical shudder, then ducked into the elevator.

"You drive a hard bargain, Chiba-kun!" the sandy blonde called out. "Have you been practicing your blackmail techniques? If I were your little girl's future boyfriend, I would  _not_  want to find myself on your bad side!"

Mamoru laughed heartily as the doors slid shut on his best friend. The man was a basket case, there was nothing else about it, Mamoru decided with cheerful affection. He stuck his key into the appropriate hole with only mild difficulty, seeing as the world was still pleasantly fuzzy around the edges. While not exorbitant by any means, he regardless had indulged rather more heavily than he initially intended to... Motoki had that effect on people!

Mamoru yawned widely as he entered the domicile. He was a bit surprised to find the lights still on. It was pretty late - eleven o'clock, at least. Pregnancy made Usagi very tired, and usually, she would've been in bed hours ago.

"Usako? Are you up?" Mamoru called, in hushed tones, just in case she wasn't. He hung his coat and peeked into the living room.

"Usako?"

No answer. He was beginning to think she merely forgot to turn off the lights before retiring for the night when he found Usagi in the kitchen, sitting at the counter, slumped over a steaming mug of hot cocoa.

"There you are," Mamoru sighed, with maybe the minutest stirrings of relief. He was embarrassed to admit it, but lately, whenever she wasn't within his sight, he got nervous.  _Inordinately_  nervous. Which was probably why he was such an easy lush tonight.

Mamoru stepped into the kitchen and immediately noticed the change in the air. He half-considered stepping back out - slowly, with hands up. Especially when Usagi huffed loudly.

"You're home late."

Mamoru blinked at the waspish quality of her voice. He side-eyed the clock, which - yep, as he assumed - read eleven o'clock. On the dot.

"Erm. I'm back when I said I would be?" Mamoru parried, supplicatingly, feeling wrong-footed and confused as to why he should be feeling that way. It wasn't like his 'guys night' with Motoki occurred without her direct permission. She  _encouraged_  it, even!

Usagi seemed to fumble for words at that, frozen in the face of logic, but she was clearly still stewing. Mamoru glanced into her cup, and was shocked to see it completely full, the hot liquid steeped to the brim. He looked up at her.

"Is... something bothering you? It's not like you to leave something sweet untouched!"

"Nothing's the matter," Usagi answered promptly; stiffly.

"Usako," Mamoru said, a light scold that accompanied two eyebrows disappearing into his hair line. It was a tone that implied he knew very well that she was lying to him. She stared coolly, adopting a defensive stance upon the stool, but even despite her show of bravado, he could see that his wife was struggling to remain stoic.

Mamoru approached very gingerly, like one would an injured bird. When he got close enough, he reached out and laid his hands over Usagi's, which were still clutching the mug like a lifeline to composure.

"Usako. Please.  _Talk to me_."

His heartfelt pleading (and probably the sneaky inclusion of puppy dog eyes, she never could resist those) seemed to do the trick, for Usagi broke at last.

"Why would you talk to me when you can talk to any of the other pretty girls at the bar?" she snapped, knuckles going white as she hugged the mug ever tighter.

Ah, he could see where this was leading. "Honey, I didn't talk to any girls at the bar. Well, unless you count Motoki-kun."

Usagi ignored Mamoru's attempt at humor, sniffing, "I'm not stupid. I know what men do at bars!"

Mamoru wanted to laugh at the absurdity of her claims. Infidelity was not something Usagi would ever have to worry about from him! "That's what this is about? Oh Usako. Motoki-kun and I are both very happily married. Neither of us have any interest in anyone else."

He patted her hand like that was the end of it, but far from mollified, Usagi's face screwed up and she burst into unexpected tears. Mamoru blinked, flummoxed again, which was beginning to become the theme of the night. What did he say?

"Usako?" the man croaked, a desperate edge to his voice. He grabbed her cheeks and rubbed the pads of his thumbs over the dampened hollows of her eyes. Usagi leaned into his touch, hiccoughing for a few moments before she gathered her wits enough to speak.

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I know I'm being horrible to you tonight. I just had a lot of time to think when I was alone in the apartment waiting for you, and I guess I fell into a dark headspace. I'm just... I'm just really scared," Usagi admitted, her voice barely above a whisper, and it issued in squeaks and stops as she continued to fight her overwrought emotions.

"What are you scared of?" Mamoru murmured back, all one hundred percent of his attention focused on her, hoping she could see how much he cared, how much he hurt when she was hurt.

Usagi averted her features, as if in shame, and some of that spilled into her next confession. "That as the baby grows, you'll find me less attractive. I feel so... so big and bloated now. I'm not- not pretty anymore, not like the girls at the bar probably were-"

"Now you stop right there," Mamoru said, gently but firmly. He placed one index against Usagi's lips for good measure. "That's the silliest notion I've ever heard!"

"It's true!" Usagi protested, in a garbled voice as she spoke around Mamoru's finger. Her cerulean blues welled over again. "I'm huge. I'm starting to not be able to see my feet anymore! Not that I'd want to! Because they're all gross and swollen!"

Mamoru removed his appendage; shifted closer. "You are twenty weeks pregnant, Usako. Halfway there. This is all to be expected. I thought you loved being pregnant?"

"I- I do," Usagi conceded, amidst another bout of sniffles. "B-but I just k-kept thinking about all those g-girls in their skimpy little dresses dancing near you and Motoki-onee-chan, and I just felt... I just felt..."

Mamoru waited patiently for Usagi to sort through her internal fears, trying to give name to them.

"Ugly. Inadequate. Like you deserve better. Someone who doesn't waddle when they walk!"

Mamoru made an angsty growling noise in the back of his throat. He grabbed Usagi by the shoulders; started unconsciously kneading the protruding blades.

"You listen to me, my darling Bun-Head. Your body may be different now but it is because of a  _miracle_. You are carrying my child inside you. How can anyone else compare? You have  _never_  been more beautiful to me. I don't know how it's possible, but watching you grow more and more into a mother every day has caused me to fall even  _deeper_  in love with you. I will never want any more than you, Usako. There is  _no_   _one_  greater."

Usagi began to keen even more vociferously at that declaration, which Mamoru sealed with a very wet kiss. When he pulled back, and started carding his fingers softly through her hair, the blonde choked out a watery laugh.

"S-sorry. I don't know why I'm such a mess."

"Hormones," Mamoru pointed out promptly, an affectionate lilt to his response. "They do funny things to funny people."

"I guess s-  _heyy_!"

Mamoru smirked.

"That's  _not_  funny!"

"Never said I was," the man shrugged cheerfully. "Now - why don't I make myself a cup of hot chocolate too, and we'll settle in with a late night movie, hmm?"

Usagi smiled, wiped her eyes, stood up. She slid her arm through Mamoru's. Big blue eyes looked up at him in adulation.

"You always know how to make me feel better, Mamo-chan."

And he knew there would never be a better compliment than that.

**_Next Prompt_ : "Nudge"**


	14. Nudge

It happened out of the blue, but when it did, Usagi knew immediately what it was she was feeling. She clutched her stomach with a gasp.

"Usagi! What is it? Are you alright?" Rei demanded, crossing the shrine room to come grab Usagi's shoulder. Usagi turned a blinding smile on her raven-haired companion.

"She kicked! She actually kicked and it wasn't just a quickening!"

"I have no idea what that means but shove over, Cinder Breath, Auntie Minako wants to feel!" the rising starlet cried, checking Rei out of the way with her hip.

"'Quickening' is the term used to describe the first flutterings of fetal movement a pregnant woman feels, generally early in the second trimester," Ami explained, but her attempt at educating fell flat, as it was drowned out by Rei's hollered,

"Watch who you're calling Cinder Breath, Three-Holes-No-Wait Barbie!"

"You two," Ami rolled her eyes, while Makoto snickered.

Usagi sucked in again, sharply.

"Oh wow. Oh wow, wow, wow!"

The girls all gathered around their bun-headed leader as she stared with lovestruck enthrallment down at her bump. Four hands pressed against her stomach; they all were waiting with unerring hope for their newest princess to announce her presence once more.

"What does it feel like?" Makoto wondered curiously, an adorably innocent expression gracing her countenance as she gazed up at her friend.

"Weird," Usagi said after a moment of consideration. She scrunched up her face. "Like there's an alien poking around inside me!"

"She's twenty three weeks now, right? That's a very active stage. She can even hear outside sounds!" Ami gushed excitedly.

"Mamo-chan says that too. He reads to her at night," Usagi recalled fondly. "And I sing to her, sometimes."

"Dear God. The child has hearing damage already?"

"Meanie Rei-chan!"

Rei stuck out her tongue, and Usagi was about to respond in kind, when she felt it again - a nudge against her ribcage that sent shockwave ripples across her stomach. The mother-to-be grunted at the sensation; the very mild discomfort of her daughter's limbs railing against her organs.

The Senshi all squealed.

"You guys felt that!?"

"That. Was. Awesome!" Minako whooped, fist-pumping the sky. Rei looked indubitably proud.

"Figures she kicks only after I tease her Mama."

"The little brat," Usagi growled, but the warm glow in her eyes negated the scoff in her voice. "That's just like Chibi-Usa!"

"Aw, I'm sure it's just a coincidence, Usagi-chan," Makoto mollified, with such poorly hidden dubiety that it earned her a look from everyone present. She shrugged and grinned sheepishly.

Usagi's crystalline blue eyes roved over each Senshi in turn. "Er... guys... if you don't mind... please don't mention this to Mamo-chan. He'll be really upset if he finds out he wasn't the first to feel Chibi-Usa kick."

The Senshi as one nodded solemnly. Of course, the serious air did not linger long, not when Minako was in attendance.

"Why would she wait for  _him_? Sheesh. She knows who's  _really_  gonna be wrapped around her cute little baby pinky," the effervescent blonde quipped, waggling said appendage. "I guess this confirms it... Chibi-Usa-chan really does love  _us_  best!"

**_Next Prompt_ : "Midnight"**


	15. Midnight

Usagi bolted upright in bed. Her heart was beating fit to burst, and her breaths issued in throaty gasps. She could feel Chibi-Usa come alive inside her, fluttering and nudging against her ribs as if preternaturally aware of her mother's distress. Usagi briefly wondered if the child had been sleeping too, and was awoken just as unpleasantly. She felt even worse when Mamoru shifted into consciousness beside her.

"Usako?" he mumbled groggily. Usagi didn't answer, still trying to calm herself, but it was to no avail. The terrible images and foreboding feeling of an impending horror remained. She felt like her mind was utterly disconnected from her body.

"Usako, you're trembling!" Mamoru sounded more awake now, and there was a sharp twang in his voice that smacked of intense concern. Usagi couldn't see him through the shroud of darkness that hung over their bedroom, but she felt when he sat up and put cold fingers upon her arm and back. "What's wrong? Are you okay?"

Usagi still felt like her throat was cinched shut. When she opened her mouth, only a choked sob broke free - just one, and nothing further. Perhaps this was some delayed form of shock?

Mamoru realized he wasn't going to receive a response any time soon. He must have known too exactly what she needed, because he gathered his wife in without another word. They stayed like that for an interminable amount of time, Usagi huddled against Mamoru's steadying chest, Mamoru stroking down her bedraggled hair, until slowly the shaking began to subside and she felt remotely human again. Her eyes had adjusted to the lack of light, and Usagi was now able to read that the clock on the nightstand had just heralded in the midnight hour.

"Thank you," the blonde whispered at last, so grateful that her husband was always and unfailingly her rock during moments like these.

"Do you wanna talk about it?" Mamoru murmured, still trying to maintain the sense of peace and security he had managed to lull Usagi into. She appreciated his efforts; she still felt like she could easily devolve into hysterical breakdown.

Usagi swallowed thickly; took a deep breath. Mamoru's hand moved across her back in soothing motions, which helped distract her from the urge to panic as her dream - no, nightmare - began to resurface in horribly vivid detail.

"It was awful," she said shakily. "I saw... I was in a dark - maybe a room, I'm not sure - but wherever I was it was dark and claustrophobic. There was - some water, I think, pools of water... but the worst,  _blood_ , there was just blood  _everywhere_. Something terrible happened. Something terrible and I couldn't - I wasn't there to save..."

Usagi was starting to hyperventilate again, the recollection and the associated sensations - fear, pain, loss, helplessness - still too raw. Tears bubbled up and over in her eyes. Mamoru grabbed her and ensconced the small woman in his arms once more, making gentle shushing noises.

"It was just a dream, Usako. You're okay. Just a dream-"

"No," Usagi sobbed. "No, they're - someone's hurt and I couldn't... I failed-"

"You failed no one. You're here, my love. Everything's fine. Every _one's_  fine." Mamoru's hand snaked out and grasped Usagi's; he maneuvered it over and held the appendage fast against her twenty-six weeks swollen stomach. "Feel that? She's right here. I'm here. You're here. It's all okay. You were only having a bad dream."

Usagi pressed against her bump, hard, the kicks beneath hers and Mamoru's intertwined fingers like Chibi-Usa trying to reassure her Mama just as surely as her Papa was attempting to. She laid back down next to Mamoru, yet hardly slept the rest of the night. Usagi just could not shake the feeling of dread that subsisted in the pit of her gut. Perhaps it was intuition - her sixth sense, as Rei might call it - but Usagi knew that had been no ordinary night terror.

Something was coming, and she was powerless to stop it.

**_Next Prompt_ : "Optimist"**


	16. Optimist

_Riiiiiing. Riiiiiing. Riiiiiing._

Mamoru rummaged around in his work bags with one hand, while the other expertly clutched his steering wheel. The radio blared a doleful tune; perfect accentuation to this dark, dreary day. A weatherman hopped onto the air just as the last verse sang out.

"Another wet one out there, folks, but you know what they say about those April showers!"

A laugh faker than Minako's mink jacket filled the car as the weatherman hooted and guffawed at his own shoddy joke, but Mamoru hardly paid mind. He was more intent on procuring his phone from wherever the hell it ended up inside all his daily luggage.

_Riiiiiing. Riiiiiing. Riiiiiing._

"Steady rain and strong winds to continue on into tonight, so be careful on those slick roads-"

" _Aha_!"

Mamoru triumphantly raised his missing cell, just in time to see the caller - 'Home' - sent to voicemail. He cursed and attempted to subvert the transfer, only to lose his grip when the car hit a surprise gully and began to spin out. Mamoru let his cell fall to the floor so that he could grab the wheel with both hands, and focus as intently as possible on what was happening in the road.

He didn't breath until the car straightened out of its hydroplane.

_Riiiiiing. Riiiiiing. Riiiiiing._

Mamoru cocked his brow and looked down. It was 'Home' again, flashing across the top of his phone's screen from where the device had landed, in the foot-space of the passenger side. The twenty-five year old's heart began to speed up, quicker than it had during his brief loss of vehicular control only moments before. Usagi didn't usually call twice in a row; not when he was scheduled to be elsewhere. Was something up?

Trying not to spin worst case scenarios about her or the baby, Mamoru reached over into the other side and - with far more luck and far less fumbling this time around - grabbed up the errant cell.

"Hello?" he gasped, rather breathlessly, over the persistent pounding in his ears.

"Hi, Mamo-chan," Usagi said, sounding perfectly normal and untroubled, if not a little quieter than usual. Mamoru strained to hear her over their tenuous and spotty connection.

"Usako, you know I'm driving right now, right?" he sighed, mildly exasperated, but mostly just relieved to know she was in one piece.

"Oh. Sorry," Usagi replied, dully. "I thought you might have been on your last fifteen."

"I left early," Mamoru rushed to explain. "Wanted to get a jump on the drive home. This downpour is torrential. Damn near monsoon levels!"

He waited for Usagi to chuckle, but instead she just "Hmm"ed in that same lifeless tone. Mamoru had been about to politely ask if she'd call him back if she was just bored and wanting to small talk, given the hazardous driving conditions, but at that non-response his 'Usagi-Senses' went haywire.

"You sound sad. What's wrong?"

Mamoru could practically hear the tears inside Usagi's garbled voice as the dam came crumbling down. "It's that dream from last night. I can't stop thinking about it!"

"I know, it was a very scary dream," Mamoru crooned, patiently. "But still a dream all the same."

"I really don't think so, Mamo-chan," Usagi sniffled. "I - I think it was a premonition. Like Rei-chan gets? I think the universe was trying to tell me something... something bad. It was a warning!"

"Usako," Mamoru began, with the same forbearance as before, only to be interrupted by Usagi's panicked,

"What if it's the baby? What if there's something wrong with Chibi-Usa!?"

"Sweetie, you need to calm down and not get too worked up over this," Mamoru inserted firmly. "That is far more likely to bring her harm than any nightmare."

He could hear Usagi taking deep breaths, understanding his concerns. He himself had to steal a couple as well. "That's it, good. Calm. Just stay calm."

Usagi was silent, or maybe she had just nodded; he observed her doing that sometimes while on the phone, and it was adorable every time, like she forgot she couldn't be seen. At last, the woman spoke again, this time markedly less frantic.

"I want to schedule an appointment with the obstetrician. Just to be sure."

"Okay," Mamoru agreed; whatever would assuage her fears. He turned his wheel to the left, switching lanes, thinking on how ironic it was that he should be the optimist in this situation, when so often the roles were reversed. But he supposed that was all part and parcel of marriage. For better or worse, in sickness and in health, right? Sometimes a person had to step up when the other was encountering a weak point. "We'll call tomorrow. But remember, Usako - it's probably nothing. Pregnant women are known to experience very vivid, even morbid dreams. It's normal, given how intense a period of your life this is. Emotions are heightened. So please don't worry overmuch about it. Okay?"

"Okay," Usagi repeated, sounding at least marginally mollified. Mamoru could hear a muffled rustling, like she was wiping her eyes of their sorrows.

"And don't forget! Dinner at your parents' tomorrow night," the ebony-headed man reminded, a lighthearted lilt to his voice as he attempted to brighten the mood. "Think about what you want to contribute."

"Oh, I'm totally making a soufflé," Usagi said, and Mamoru swore he could hear the smile forming on her face.

"You? A  _soufflé_? Usako, are you sure you're not just going to call Mako-chan over to bake, then claim it as your own?" he sniggered.

"Oh such little faith you have in me," Usagi bemoaned, and Mamoru could just envision her clutching her chest in faux offense. "I'll have you know, I am putting my best apron on as we speak!"

"Well I eagerly await cashing in on my taste testing privileges," Mamoru grinned, and his voice softened as he continued, "I'll see you soon, Usako. Love you."

"I love you too," Usagi answered with gentle reverence. "Thanks for indulging my crazy."

"Always."

oOo

Usagi unlaced her apron and tossed it onto the counter. Soufflé had perhaps been too ambitious an endeavor, she thought in retrospect. As much as the blonde tried, she just wasn't ever going to be able to cook like Makoto or even Mamoru. Her head had spun like a top on a table the second she started looking up a soufflé's necessary ingredients and complicated baking instructions. It had taken approximately three minutes for her to nix the idea altogether, and one more to come up with an alternate plan of action. Now, the house smelled like homemade cookies fresh from the oven.

Well, maybe there was a  _touch_  of burnt food wafting upon the air.

But this batch was a lot better than the last one!

"Usagi-chan, have you had anything to drink lately?" a nagging voice sounded from close to the ground. "You need to have some water."

Usagi scowled and glared daggers at her feline companion. "You and Mamo-chan must be in cahoots. I  _can_  take care of myself, Luna!"

"Proper hydration is very important," Luna maintained, as if her charge had not said a word. "If you shirk on your water intake, it can lead to less breast milk production, lower amniotic fluid levels, birth defects and even premature labor!"

"Okay, okay! Sheesh. Why don't you lay off the 'What To Expect When You're Expecting'? I'm pouring a glass right now. Happy?"

"As a kitten," Luna purred, flicking her tail and watching intently as Usagi downed an entire three quarters of her glass in one go. When the bun-headed blonde swallowed, she glanced first at her stomach, then over at the cat, quirking her brow Luna's direction.

"Don't ever have one of those. It's a trick. You'll never sleep enough, never eat enough, never feel comfortable enough. They're way more trouble than they're worth," Usagi teased, patting her twenty-six weeks distended belly.

Luna turned away, snickering.

"Well you're a full time job as it is, so  _someone_  has to keep after the little one, if they're going to be anything like you... which we know she will!" Luna called over her shoulder. Usagi stuck her tongue out at the haughty little guardian, but Luna had already gone.

"More and more like my mother every day, I swear," Usagi grumbled under her breath, returning to the cool liquid replenishment. She gulped down the last of the contents just as her front doorbell rang out, the shrill cacophony of bells reverberating loudly throughout the apartment. Usagi wondered if one of the girls had come to visit as she wandered out into the hall and cheerfully opened the door.

It wasn't.

"Are you Mrs. Usagi Chiba?"

"Y-yes," Usagi answered, nervously eying the fierce looking police officer before her, whose lips were drawn into a tight frown. She felt her heart rate picking up.

"I have some bad news. I'm sorry to say there has been an accident. Do you have a moment to sit down?"

**_Next Prompt_ : "Tragedy"**


	17. Tragedy

Usagi had not the foggiest clue how she got through the conversation with the police officer. She could not remember inviting him in, nor could she remember him leaving.

But he  _had_  been there, as evidenced by the slight indentation in the cushions the bun-headed blonde was still sitting staring at, and the horrible, hollow feeling in the pit of her stomach as silence descended on the apartment once more.

It was too much. Too much like a reminder, of the emptiness that was left in the officer's wake.

Usagi squeezed her eyes shut.

_Gone_.

The word and all of its implications rattled around in her brain, consuming, taking on a life of its own.

_Gone. They're **gone**._

Usagi knew she was starting to shake. She could hear an insistent mewing at her feet, but the world was tunneling, fading into black around her, and Usagi found herself utterly unable to react to her guardian feline's summons. She felt sick, delirious, helpless to the hostile machinations of grief upon her body.

Someone was screaming. The sheer pitch hurt Usagi's ears, and her throat, too. She realized it was her just as the creeping darkness opened wide and swallowed her whole.

She welcomed the numbness of unconsciousness.

oOo

Mamoru nearly doubled over as the unexpected deluge of pain hit him, through the bond that he shared with Usagi. He grit his teeth and had to refocus on driving, but it was difficult, because along with Usagi's distress, he felt his own rising. It wasn't often he received blowback like this, not unless Usagi's emotions were so heightened they had gone beyond her control.

He could think of a number of reasons why his wife might be hurting in this way, and each one was more terrifying than the next.

Pure panic spurred Mamoru into greater action. He increased his already white knuckled grip on the steering wheel, and let his foot come down hard on the gas.

_Hold on, Usako. I'm almost there. Hold on!_

The fire engine red Ferrari whipped down rain-streaked roads with a frantic speed that couldn't be matched. Mamoru sailed in and out of traffic, thanking his lucky stars that there were no cops stationed on his route today. He didn't think he would've been able to 'cease and desist' in his current state of mind. Not without a few strategically thrown roses, that would somehow have ended up embedded into the rubber of their tires.

The car rounded a sharp bend. At that moment, without warning, Mamoru's link to Usagi went cold.

The former superhero turned doctor lurched in his seat. Losing the direct connection to Usagi was like resurfacing into fresh air after having been held down underwater. But while he was no longer drowning in her emotions, this severance was indubitably worse. What was going on? He tried to mentally reach through, send tendrils of thought her way - bring her back to him - but it was like butting up against a stone wall. He could no longer sense the overwhelming grief that had been emanating so strongly from her side of the bond. She had shut down her feelings - or perhaps been forced to. And without knowing the exact reason why, this was almost more agonizing for Mamoru. He ached to understand, yet dreaded the answers... so very scared for his wife and their unborn daughter.

_Usako was right_ , Mamoru realized. Something terrible  _had_  been about to befall them. And he brushed aside her fears like they were nothing.

He felt like the shoddiest husband.

Mamoru pulled into the apartment complex's parking lot like all the demons from hell were on his tail. He didn't know how he knew that Usagi was still at home, but he did, with every fiber of his being urging him on in that direction. He lunged from his car before it was barely even stopped, uncaring of trivial things like whether the headlights were off or doors locked. He was single-minded in his concerns; unwavering in his haste. The man scaled numerous stories in two minutes flat, until he was at the topmost level of the high-rise complex, out of breath and ready for anything. He busted open the front door like a monster was on the other side. For all he knew, there could have been.

The scene he entered into was not at all one Mamoru was expecting. His apartment was full of Senshi, but Usagi was nowhere to be seen. Mamoru dropped his keys haphazardly onto the floor and strode into the living room. His heart dropped at the oppressive pall of sadness that hung heavy in the air; the devastated looks on the faces of Makoto, Minako, Artemis and Ami as they turned, in unison, to greet him.

"What happened?" he demanded, throat tight.

No one spoke. Minako was the first to approach, and Mamoru saw that she was crying. She gave him a crushing hug.

"I'm so sorry, Mamoru-san," she hiccuped, pulling back to awkwardly pat his shoulders. "It was... they were..."

Minako struggled valiantly to get it out, but instead was overcome by a fresh welling of tears. Mamoru could only think of one 'they'...

"Usako and the baby," he choked, in a voice that would normally have lost him an embarrassing amount of dignity in the masculinity department.

Ami stepped forward then, one hand placating Minako and the other waving at Mamoru in a similarly conciliatory manner.

"No no no," she reassured shakily. "It wasn't her. She's fine, they're both fine. It was... it was her parents. The Tsukinos. There's... there was an accident. The car lost control during the storm and it went - well, it was a very bad accident..."

Ami had to swallow multiple times. Her voice was gruff. "It went off the Gate Bridge in Wakasu. They're gone."

Mamoru felt like he was punched in the gut. Minako's sniffles got louder, but Mamoru hardly noticed, cast asunder in his own shock coupled with irrepressible grief. He clenched and unclenched his fists, only one question springing to mind following this tragic news.

"Where is she?"

"I carried her to bed. Rei-chan's with her now. Won't leave her side," Makoto said with a watery, affectionate smile. "She's still sleeping, but we felt a bit guilty crowding her. We decided to wait for you out here."

"I appreciate that," Mamoru murmured, with a distracted nod of thanks. He started for the bedroom, but was stopped by Makoto's hand on his arm.

"She's really going to need you," the brawny twenty-one year old whispered softly. There was no accusation in her statement, just concern. Mamoru knew she meant well.

"I would never let her down," he answered just as gently. "Not with this."

Makoto jerked her head in satisfied acceptance, and in that moment, something passed between them. An understanding, that can only be felt by those who have been left orphaned. And now, Usagi was one of their number.

Mamoru wished to God it didn't have to be so.

He entered the bedroom, which in his absence had taken on the distinct feel of a morgue. It made the man want to shiver to see Usagi so lifeless under the sheets; she didn't so much as twitch even though Rei was carding solicitous fingers through her mussed and rumpled hair.

The tired looking priestess glanced up upon Mamoru's arrival. She tried to smile at him, but it just came out a strained grimace. He echoed the sentiment with similar effect.

"How is she?" he queried, quietly walking over to the bed. Rei scooched over to give him space to sit. Mamoru noticed Luna on the pillow next to Usagi, also napping, her small body curled in such a way that it looked like she was his wife's personal halo. It was a protective and maternal gesture - touching to behold, given the circumstances.

"I won't lie, not well," Rei replied gravely. "Apparently she was hysterical after the police officer left. Luna called us on the communicator frantic, saying that she had worked herself into such a state that she fainted."

Mamoru buried his face in his palms. He felt Rei grip his shoulder tightly.

"I should have been here."

"You couldn't have known."

"But I still should have," Mamoru lamented, aggrieved all over again. He turned agonized cobalt-blue eyes Rei's direction. "I feel like I failed her."

"You're here now, aren't you?" Rei pointed out, in as sweet a tone as Mamoru had ever heard issuing from the normally choleric woman's mouth. She tilted her head, the twin locks of blackest night tumbling in cascades off to one side. "And something tells me you moved heaven and earth to be here as quickly as you were - am I right?"

Mamoru shrugged, but he saw the truth in her words, and it appeased him. He went back to examining Usagi.

"She's really out cold," he commented, running one index down her graceful profile.

Rei made a noise of agreement. "I suspect the Crystal's involvement. It must have responded to her immense pain by putting her into a deep restorative sleep."

"That won't hurt the baby?" Mamoru asked sharply.

"Quite the opposite. Ami-chan scanned Usagi with her computer to be sure, but it looks like Chibi-Usa-chan is healthier than ever. I even wonder if that's why the Silver Crystal put her to sleep in the first place. To protect its unborn heir."

Mamoru pursed his lips, remembering a tearful conversation with Usagi months and months earlier, about a revelation Setsuna made to her one cold and snowy afternoon. The Crystal sure did take a lot of liberties with his wife, didn't it? Mamoru sighed, cutting off his internal grousing. He supposed he should be grateful - sleep  _was_  the best thing for Usagi now. He just hated that it was always her, who would have to pay the price for peace. Always her who had to suffer the most... all in the name of the 'greater good'.

Sometimes he just wanted to say screw the greater good.

Sometimes he just wanted to take his little family, and hide them away on some deserted island, where Crystal Tokyo and the trials of a new world could never find them.

He wished, he wished, he wished. But just like wishing for the Tsukinos back, it was a fruitless endeavor.

They could never run very far from destiny.

Mamoru bent down and kissed the bun-head on her forehead. Rei cleared her throat, standing up.

"Well, it looks like I'm leaving her in good hands. Would you like us to start dinner, Mamoru-san?"

Mamoru deliberated briefly. He certainly wasn't hungry, and he doubted Usagi would be either, whenever she woke up... but it wasn't just two of them anymore, either. Maintaining a regular diet was important; Usagi especially could not afford to shirk in that regard, no matter how badly she felt. "That would be wonderful, Rei-san. Thank you."

Rei inclined her head, and made to exit.

"Rei-san?"

Rei paused. "Yeah?"

"I mean it," Mamoru said, with wholehearted sincerity. He picked up Usagi's cooled limp hand, and squeezed it between his own warm fingers. "Thank you.  _For_   _everything_. She's so lucky to have such dear and loyal friends."

Rei cracked her first genuine smile of the day.

"Not just her, Mamoru-san. Not just her."

**_Next Prompt_ : "Mope"**


	18. Mope

It was a couple days past the funeral for Kenji and Ikuko Tsukino. Mamoru was inconspicuously observing Usagi from the living room's doorway. His petite wife was swathed in a blanket, sitting tucked into the large window seat, which was the same position she had adopted ever since waking from her Crystal-induced sleep. It was her favorite spot to mope, which was pretty much all the woman did, when she wasn't nibbling halfheartedly on food solely for Chibi-Usa's sake. Coruscating rays of morning sunlight shined in on her face, but they only served to highlight the gaunt look in her eyes and wispy hair that hadn't seen a brush in near on two days. She stared down at the city below with a listless expression that fairly broke Mamoru's heart.

He had never seen his sweet, funny, charming, effervescent little Bun-Head look so dead before.

Mamoru took a deep breath. He schooled his features into the most cheerful he could muster, and stepped fully into the room. "Beautiful day out there, huh?"

Usagi didn't even glance over. "Mm."

"It's so warm. Very pleasant breeze. Perhaps you'd like to join me - go for a walk, get some fresh air...? Oh! Maybe even some ice cream at the new parlor down the road?"

"Mmmm," Usagi sighed, lifting one shoulder just so, in what might have been a shrug. Then she shook her head very minutely. "Mm-mm."

Mamoru wanted to scowl in frustration, but he knew that would get him nowhere, not when Usagi was this deep in her funk. So he decided to try a different tactic.

"Your brother called earlier," he said, offhandedly.  _That_  triggered a reaction. Usagi twitched in her seat; pulled the blanket closer. The man slowly approached until he was flush with the twenty-seven weeks expectant blonde, looking down at her with careful scrutiny. "He asked about you and the baby. He says he'd really like to get together, when you're feeling up to it."

"I just saw him. At the funeral," Usagi replied softly, and Mamoru swore he spied the shadow of a frown cross her face. It worried him, greatly. So he plunked down next to her on the seat and clutched her hand.

"Usako... just because your parents were coming back from visiting him at college when it happened... that doesn't make it his fault."

Usagi pinned him with a sharp gaze full of gently simmering blue fire. "I don't blame Shingo! I know it's not his fault."

"Then why don't you want to see your brother?" Mamoru queried, quietly.

Usagi swallowed thickly. She averted her gaze, back out the window, onto the steel buildings sparkling so brightly. To Mamoru, the sight was like a hearkening of the future city to come. It made his stomach flip-flop with nerves.

"I just... can't right now," Usagi whispered. She closed her eyes and bowed her flaxen-colored head. When she opened them again, Mamoru saw tears swimming in her dull cerulean depths. "He's... he's too much like them. And I just... I can't, yet. Please don't ask me again."

Mamoru hated the begging quality of her voice. He hated even more that she felt like he was forcing her into something that discomfited her. "I understand, Usako. I won't ask again. Not until you're ready."

Usagi nodded, satisfied. But it didn't take long before she was back to moping. It was starting to drive Mamoru crazy. This was too much like watching her waste away.

"You can talk to me, you know," Mamoru entreated. "I do know a thing or two about losing your parents to a freak automobile accident."

He tried to maintain a lighthearted tone, but a part of him felt desperate to reconnect, for fear he might lose Usagi (and in effect, Chibi-Usa) to this potentially damaging depression. He wished he could do something to get her to leave this house, instead of wrapping herself up in morose thoughts like she did her security blanket, day in day out, refusing even the company of her beloved Senshi. It was so very worrisome.

Usagi said nothing, just continued to gaze idly out the glass, doing her darndest to play a mindless mute.

"Let me be there for you," Mamoru implored. "Help me share your pain. Let me shoulder some of its weight."

But still, Usagi was silent; sullen. He knew she had crawled back into the pit; the dark chasm of grief that if left unchecked, would eventually grow to consume her inherent light; her good-hearted spirit. He knew, because it happened to him, twenty-odd long years ago. And it wasn't until a failed test bounced off his head, that he started to find himself once more.

Mamoru leaned in; let his forehead meet hers. He squeezed his eyes shut tight and tried one last time to reach across her self-imposed distance, this time offering up his exhortations through the soul bond.

_You're not alone, Usako. Please. Let me in._ _Let me do for you what you did for me._

But he couldn't save her if she wouldn't reach back.

**_Next Prompt_ : "Nowhere"**


	19. Nowhere

Usagi wasn't quite sure how she ended up here.

Well, logically, she did. After two weeks, the apartment had begun to feel less like a sanctuary and more like a stifling prison. She had just gone out for a quick breath of fresh air, that was it. But somehow, utterly unplanned, her step outside became a walk, and that walk became a cab ride -

Her words had stumbled out before she even had a chance to check them.  _"Take me to the Tokyo Gate Bridge."_

And now, here she was - alone, standing in the exact spot where her family's car had lost control and gone over. Usagi exhaled shakily. It was a surreal feeling. She felt like she was drifting through a dream, only this dream didn't have a happy beginning, middle, or end. 'Nightmare' was probably more apt. Usagi's feet guided her forward almost of their own volition, taking slow, tentative steps toward a very mangled section of iron railing - the only thing that separated car-goers and civilians alike from a hapless fate in the deep waters below. It just wasn't enough to save her parents, she thought bitterly.

The expectant blonde swallowed painfully as she reached out and put trembling fingers against the cold hard metal.  _Did they suffer?_  she wondered bleakly.  _Were they aware of what was happening, as the car plummeted to its doom?_

Usagi hated these morbid musings, but she didn't know how to make them stop. Being here, in the place where she lost her Mama and Papa... it brought everything writhing back to the surface. She felt scraped raw, grief renewed. The bun-headed Moon Princess went up on tiptoe. She tried desperately to peer over the railing; catch a glimpse of the dark grey pitching and swirling far beneath the towering trusses of the Gate Bridge. She wasn't sure what had come over her, but there was a frantic need gripping hold; a strange impulsive desire to get as close to the water as possible, and she was helpless to comply.

Usagi moved as if on autopilot. It was no trouble at all to slip past the railing. The impact damage the accident inflicted left just enough space for her to crawl through and onto the ledge beyond. Cars flitted by but evening was descending, and in the burgeoning darkness Usagi must not have been seen, because no one pulled over to offer her aid. She was glad for it.

Once out on the ledge, there wasn't much standing room - two, maybe three feet, followed by a perilously steep drop. The wind was also much stronger out here. It buffeted without mercy, intimations of another spring tempest fast on its way. If any of Usagi's mental faculties were functioning at normal capacity, she might have stopped to wonder just what the hell she was thinking.

As it was, the former Senshi paid these things no mind. She was utterly single-minded in her mission. Usagi raised herself up slowly, breaths shallow as she clutched the iron beam behind her for support. There was no fear inside her; rather, a lack of feeling at all. This whole moment still felt like being trapped inside a very bad dream. One pinch, and she'd be back in bed, surrounded by her family... Mama and Papa and annoying little brother Shingo; Luna and Mamoru and their tiny daughter Chibi-Usa, tucked safely inside her.

Usagi choked, throat burning, her heart constricting as if in a vise. She wanted that back. She wanted  _them_  back, so terribly much. She felt that same compulsion from before ripple through her, stealing away all reason; an insatiable need to see the water. And so, she leaned forward - craning, creeping - close as her feet would dare, and yet, it didn't feel close enough... not nearly close enough...

Thunder rumbled forbiddingly in the distance. At the same time, Chibi-Usa gave a sharp warning kick.

Usagi gasped. Her hand flew off the wall and down to her stomach.

She blinked - once, twice, three times - then many more in rapid succession.

What was she  _doing_? Usagi came to with a jolt of horrified realization. She was twenty-eight weeks pregnant and practically hanging off the side of a two hundred foot high ledge... Did she have a death wish!?

"I gotta get down," Usagi murmured, stricken with a sudden burst of dizzying nausea. She began to grope the beam behind her, clutching at it for dear life. Fear exploded inside her chest. "I gotta get down!"

" _Usako_!"

The woman started and peered off to her left. She was aghast and grateful to see Mamoru sprinting down the pedestrian sidewalk, straight for her. She could just barely make out his incarnadine red Ferrari, parked off road, hazards flashing. The twenty-one year old felt relief sweep through her overwrought system - her always and unfailing hero had come to her rescue once again. Usagi continued to inch very carefully back over to the gap in the railing. She refused to gaze back down at the water, despite her initial fixation. The bunned blonde barely had time to think on what  _that_  had been about before Mamoru was there, and anxiously guiding her own unnerved figure back through to safer ground.

"Usako. What were you  _doing_?" Mamoru demanded, in a voice eerily similar to the one her own conscience had assailed her with just moments before. Usagi mouthed incomprehensibly for a few seconds.

"I - I was -"

" _Do you know how_   _dangerous that was_!?" Mamoru shouted, giving Usagi's shoulders a firm but gentle shake. She saw him fully then, under the spotlight of a street lamp. The trembling limbs; the pure terror etched into every contour of his handsome features. And -

"Mamo-chan... you're crying," Usagi observed, in hushed tones. She reached up to gingerly touch the telltale moisture glistening on his cheeks. He too reached up, to capture her fingers; squeeze them desperately within his own.

"Of course I'm crying," Mamoru answered gruffly. His hand tightened around Usagi's almost painfully. "When I saw you up there, I thought... I thought..."

Usagi's eyes widened. "Mamo-chan! I - I know what it might have looked like, but I would  _never_  do that to you. Not  _ever_. Especially not with our child on the way!"

"Well what was I supposed to think?" Mamoru growled, with rightful defense. "You were gone. Just...  _gone_. And when I finally managed to track you down, and you were out  _there_..."

Usagi swallowed harshly. His voice contained so much grief, so much buried emotion, that it made her want to hang her head in shame.

"I didn't know what to think. You've been  _so_  distant lately... so withdrawn... You never talk to me anymore..."

Usagi did hang her head, then. It was true. Everything he was saying was true. She  _had_  pulled away. Not intentionally, of course. But at some point, unbeknownst to her when, it had just become easier to avoid all the miseries of the world by hiding deep inside herself. She had been so intent on preventing herself from feeling the pain of her parents' passing, that she had failed to notice just how much anguish she had caused her husband in response.

It started to rain, a cold, wet drizzle. Mamoru looked at the sky, and then Usagi, brows furrowing. "That storm will be here soon. Come on."

He gently tugged Usagi toward the car, not speaking. To Usagi, it felt like the tense silence that often follows a heated lovers' quarrel. Those didn't usually happen with them, but, she supposed this definitely qualified. She knew she had really hurt him with her actions today. Usagi kept her face averted, still feeling like the worst wife in the history of wives. That's why she was surprised when she felt Mamoru's jacket slide over her shoulders.

"You shouldn't be out in weather like this. You could get sick," the man said. There was no admonishment in his voice, just concern. Usagi took that as a good sign. She smiled softly up at him.

"Thanks."

Mamoru brought Usagi over to the passenger side; helped her get settled in. He also let her keep his jacket; tucked it securely around her knees so she wouldn't get chilly. Then he claimed his own seat, and they drove off. The silence still subsisted between them, only changed. This felt far more congenial to Usagi. She melted boneless into the seat, feeling like an over-inflated balloon that was finally releasing its excess air.

They drove and drove for an inordinately long amount of time, rain pounding a steady staccato against the windows, until at last Usagi broke the spell. She curiously piped up,

"Where are you taking us, Mamo-chan?"

"Nowhere," he answered, promptly. Usagi quirked a querulous brow.

"Nowhere?"

"Nowhere."

"...like  _nowhere_  nowhere?"

"Like  _nowhere_  nowhere," Mamoru nodded, a boyish smirk dancing about the corners of his mouth.

"But why?" Usagi questioned, her face scrunching until it was a veritable wellspring of bafflement.

"You once told me you loved driving around aimlessly with me. That it was calming. It relaxed you. So that's what we're doing - driving nowhere. And if you wanna talk, then, we can talk," Mamoru said, kindly. "No pressure."

Usagi felt a lump grow in her throat, feeling indubitably beholden. She peeked over at him from underneath her lashes.

"I'll talk."

"Okay." Mamoru pulled off onto a deserted side road; stuck the car into park. Then he turned his solicitous blues Usagi's direction and offered her an encouraging smile. Usagi fiddled with his jacket zipper, unsure how to begin. Mamoru seemed to have sensed that, because he stepped in to open their dialogue with a tentative,

"So you wanted to visit the bridge?"

Usagi shrugged one shoulder. She watched the rain make elaborate patterns on the glass. "Not initially. I just went out for a walk. I - I didn't have a destination in mind. I guess, like this car ride, I just wanted to be... nowhere. I wanted some peace. But then instead of nowhere... I ended up somewhere."

She glanced at him in her peripheral. "I should have told you where I was going. But it just... happened. I'm still not quite sure how."

"The brain is funny like that," Mamoru chuckled, sounding rather like the doctor he was. Then his countenance sobered; became serious. His voice was almost weak as he queried, "And... that stunt on the ledge?"

Lightning flickered, illuminating Usagi's blush. "It's - that's hard to explain..."

"Try me," Mamoru prompted, over the reverberating din of nature's loud wrath.

Usagi wished she could sink into the floor mat. Her cheeks must surely have acquired the brilliant crimson hue of her husband's beloved Ferrari. "It was so dumb. I really wasn't thinking properly. I just had this intense, overwhelming desire to see the water... to be close to it. I think... I think deep down I was looking for..."

_For what?_  she asked herself, at a loss for words. What  _had_  she been looking for, with such careless abandon? The car had long been recovered; the charmingly clunky red Volkswagen that had borne her family on so many vacations now sent to a junkyard, where it would live out its days another pancake in the pile. So what was it? Curiosity? Closure? Usagi blinked.

_Closure_. She rolled the word around in her mind.  _Yes_.  _Yes_ ,  _that_   _sounded_   _right_. Suddenly, everything was starting to make sense.

"I guess I wanted to be with them," Usagi whispered, in explanation. Then she realized how that could have been interpreted and quickly side-eyed Mamoru with an apologetic grimace. "Oh, not like  _that_. But just... that was the last place they were alive. And maybe... maybe I needed to see that to understand that... they're really and truly gone."

Usagi had felt it building all throughout her speech, but when she reached its conclusion she could staunch the dam no longer. Her eyes filled with tears that spilled over and over and over until she could barely breathe through the deluge. As always, Mamoru was there - somehow having lost his seat belt and vaulting over the center console in only five seconds flat. He wrapped his arms around the weeping woman and she did what she should have right from the beginning, if she'd only listened to Setsuna's heeding -

She held on to him.

"Oh Mamo-chan. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry! Can you ever forgive me?"

"As long as you promise not to scare me like that again," Mamoru replied, roughly, the dregs of his earlier terror still present in the former crusader's voice. He ran soothing fingers through Usagi's coiffure. She shook her head passionately in the negative.

"I won't. It was reckless, and stupid," Usagi bemoaned, and she burrowed her face deeper inside Mamoru's familiar scent. "I should have let you in from the start."

"You're letting me in now," Mamoru said, tenderly. "That's enough."

Usagi sniffled and nodded. They stayed like that for a long time, each holding the other, and Usagi felt that while the chasm inside her still ached, still threatened to drag her down, she would not lose herself again -

Because she had him, and she was stronger for it.

They would get through.

**_Next Prompt_ : "Remember"**


	20. Remember

Usagi sat cross-legged in the middle of her bedroom floor, boxes and papers and a sundry array of innumerable trinkets strewn about her. Though... she supposed it wasn't  _really_  her bedroom. Not anymore. Usagi Chiba lived approximately eight miles away, in the high-rise apartment she shared with her husband Mamoru, and their soon-to-be daughter Chibi-Usa. This was the childhood bedroom of Usagi Tsukino, a flighty crybaby whose tumultuous days as a schoolgirl juggling super heroine seemed like lifetimes ago.

She was the same person... and yet not at all.

Usagi smiled sadly, absentmindedly petting down the swell of silky fabric that was her floral camisole, stretched taut around a thirty-weeks distended stomach. How very strange it was to be here, as she was now. To know by heart the color of the walls, the smell of the air, the way the sun fell through the lacy white curtains. It was like reuniting with an old friend. Even her twin-size bed was made with her favorite bunny coverlet. Usagi swallowed thickly. Her parents had taken such pains to lovingly maintain this room, just as they had done for Shingo's when he too left for college. It stirred up images of her mother with duster in hand, always wearing that fastidiously tidy apron and a perpetual smile. She was the poster housewife, the ideal mother, and Usagi only hoped she would be half the woman Ikuko Tsukino had been.

Feeling a bit more downcast than she had been before, Usagi continued her endeavors to sort through her parents' belongings; the miscellaneous odds and ends that had been pulled from out of the attic. She and Mamoru had agreed to take this step by step - they were going to work from the top down, deciding what to chuck, what to sell, and what to keep. It was an arduous process, both physically and emotionally, but it had to be done. In a way, it was even cathartic. But today, Usagi did not have the brawn of her help - Mamoru had been called into the hospital unexpectedly, and so she was stuck laboring through all this junk alone. She missed him terribly, his cheerful attitude and unwavering aid. The patient understanding of all she was going through. He supported her perhaps more than he even knew.

Usagi reached into a new box. Her hand came out bearing a ream of old photographs, yellowed with age and crinkled round the edges, probably from frequent handlings. She chuckled as she realized what they were.

A cherubic blonde baby with insane dimples and the most precocious blue eyes beamed up at Usagi from the top of the pack. The woman smiled right back at her younger counterpart. She began to flick through the pictures, her heart performing somersaults as the twenty-one year old watched the progression of her life from infancy to early teens. And throughout it all, they were there -

Her parents. Hugging, kissing, coaching, encouraging, crying, laughing,  _living_. They were in nearly every snapshot, a constant presence in her and Shingo's most important moments. But Usagi's breath hitched as she realized, they would now miss one of the biggest of all.

There was a telltale creak of feet on floorboard that Usagi almost didn't notice, so lost was she in her own sulking. But something - some sixth sense or perhaps even her protective maternal instincts - alerted Usagi to the arrival of another, and she looked up sharply.

Her shoulders relaxed upon identifying the surprise visitor. "Hi, Setsuna-san."

The burgundy-haired guardian of Time stepped more fully into the room. Her expression was pleasant, but as always, gave nothing away. "Hello, Usagi-sama."

Usagi marveled at how her friend could make a random appearance such as this seem commonplace. The older woman tipped her head to the side, eyes that never missed a beat taking a grand sweep of the room; its current state of dishevelment. They landed back upon Usagi, and Setsuna asked with supreme gentleness,

"How are you?"

Usagi considered tossing out her usual "I'm fine" party line. But as she peered up at the practically omniscient revolution warrior, she knew Setsuna wouldn't be fooled by false pretenses. Would probably be offended, in fact, if Usagi did try to demean her intelligence like that.

"Okay some days. Barely holding it together others," Usagi answered, honestly. She fiddled with a bent corner on one of the photographs. "I should have listened to you. I was so hurt, I pushed everyone away. I let it consume me. And I almost destroyed my relationship with Mamo-chan in the process."

Usagi fought against the tears that threatened, still feeling so guilty for how she treated him the weeks proceeding her parents' death. Setsuna shook her head, kneeling next to her bun-headed princess. She grasped Usagi's shoulder.

"It is our natural and immediate reaction to grief. You couldn't have known," Setsuna stressed, grip tight.

"You did," Usagi said, in a little voice. She refused to look up, refused to give voice to the recriminations filling her head, but they persisted nonetheless.  _You could have told me. You could have prevented all of this_ , she thought, bitterly.

As always, Setsuna read her like a book. The Time Guardian's sadness was heavy as she replied, "I see many simultaneous potential futures happening at all times. I knew there was a chance. But to warn you in any other more definitive way could have irrevocably altered the timeline. You see, one thing has always been certain - whether it happened now or it happened later, your parents were never meant to see Crystal Tokyo. It is a fixed point; a defining juncture. I shouldn't have told you anything at all... but I couldn't bear to watch you suffer. You needed him. You could not afford to forget that."

Still miserable, Usagi nodded. She understood Setsuna's position, and could hardly begrudge the woman for simply following the orders that had been set for her long ago. She also knew, all too well, how easy it would have been to lose herself completely to this tragedy. Depression was a bottomless pit, and she shuddered to think how much deeper she would have sunk had Mamoru not reached so fiercely - so tirelessly - back for her, to pull her up into the light.

"I just... I just wish... they could have been here to meet their granddaughter," Usagi whispered, in a voice as broken as her heart. She clutched her baby bump and felt as her tears won out, their salty moisture slipping free from beneath her clenched lids.

"Didn't they?" Setsuna queried, warmly.

"What?"

"Meet her. Didn't they?"

Usagi sniffled, watching as Setsuna's hand disappeared inside the box she had been cleaning out, only to resurface again with a framed photograph in hand. She turned it around; displayed the image within to her quietly emoting princess.

"They may not have known who exactly they were playing host to," Setsuna explained, gesturing to the picture of Kenji, Ikuko, Usagi, Shingo, and a photo-bombing Chibi-Usa as she bunny-eared her future mother with what looked to be a hysterical cackle. "But I promise you, they  _adored_  her, just as surely as she adored them. It is one of Small Lady's fondest memories, that time she got to spend in the past, not only with her parents but with the grandparents she never had the honor of knowing - until then."

Usagi considered Setsuna's words as she ran a reverent finger over the euphoric faces of her beloved family, frozen in time, and yet she remembered that moment as if it were only yesterday. Usagi had caught Chibi-Usa in the act just after the camera went off, and as was their wont back then, sparring devolved into a playful wrestling match. Chibi-Usa had jumped to hide behind Kenji, and he had further aided his granddaughter in escaping Usagi's clutches by lifting her up into the air and onto his shoulders. Ikuko meanwhile had scolded Usagi for not having a sense of humor about the whole thing. At the time, it had made Usagi jealous, the way her parents fawned over Chibi-Usa, catering to her every need and whim. But now the thought warmed her heart. Perhaps they had spoiled Chibi-Usa so much because subconsciously, they recognized the child for who she was. Isn't that what grandparents were supposed to do? Dote to an excess they hadn't with their own children?

Usagi smiled and hugged the frame close to her chest. They were definitely keeping this one.

"Ah. Usagi-sama, I do believe you have another visitor," Setsuna interrupted Usagi's trip down memory lane. Usagi blinked, glancing curiously at the open and empty doorway. When she looked back, Setsuna was gone.

"She always does that," Usagi grumbled. "Show-off."

"Talking to yourself as usual, I see?" an amused male voice intoned. Usagi's head twisted around again. She was going to get whiplash if this kept up! "You never change, sis."

"Shingo!"

"Hey stupid."

"Hey brat," Usagi chortled, unable to help the toothy smirk that alighted upon her features. "What are you doing here? I'd give you a hug - but I need a lift up for that!"

Shingo laughed and went over to tug Usagi back onto two feet, now that the twenty-one year old had all but lost her center of gravity. He embraced her tightly. "Mamoru-san called and said you were here, and that you might need an extra pair of hands. That, and I don't think he wants you alone right now, either."

"He's a bit overprotective," Usagi murmured, with an affectionate roll of the eyes.

"I don't blame him. You're  _huge_!"

"Shingo!"

"I mean, you could apply for statehood!"

" _Shingooo_!" Usagi growled, pulling out of their hug so she could plant a hand on either hip. Her brother guffawed heartily. Then he conceded,

"Aw, I'm just teasing. You look great."

Usagi blushed and shrugged. She stroked her stomach again as Chibi-Usa made a series of butterfly-like flutters. She observed as Shingo's face grew a touch serious.

"I was starting to think you were avoiding me for a while there..."

Usagi sighed. "I was avoiding  _everyone_. I just needed time."

Shingo exhaled in a long puff, flipping the sandy blonde locks from out of his doleful blue eyes. His hair had only gotten shaggier over time, and Usagi liked to poke fun at him for trying to emulate 'that Scooby Doo guy'.

"I know what you mean," the eighteen year old said, gruffly. "It's pretty hard being back here without them. The house feels..."

"Empty. Incomplete," Usagi supplied, and Shingo nodded.

"Will you and Mamoru-san move in? Or will you put it up for auction?" he inquired, and his voice was small, like a child's. It reminded Usagi of the boy who used to ask to sleep with her, when the shadows in his bedroom were up to their wily tricks... back before he fancied himself too proud for the comfort of his big sister. She laid a consoling hand on his arm.

"We haven't decided. The cost of living here would, in the long run, be pretty... what's the word Mamo-chan used... e _xorbitant_. Especially with this little one on the way. But I don't think I can bear to see it given to strangers. So... we'll see. We're still discussing it," Usagi said, casting her gaze slowly about the room, as if memorizing every nook, cranny and minute detail. She knew one day it wouldn't look like this anymore, and the thought made her inner Tsukino ache.

"Hey," she chuckled. "Remember when Papa painted my room? And he spilled the bucket right over there... Mama was so mad! It took them hours to clean that mess... she made his least favorite meals for a week!"

Shingo snorted. "Yeah. You never crossed Mama. Remember that bully who used to chase me home? And that day she was watering the roses... She turned that hose on him and  _wham_! Right in the face! He never bothered me again. She terrified the crap out of him!"

"And remember that time...?"

On and on it went, until Usagi and Shingo were bent over with the force of their mirth, in stitches, laughing voraciously until they cried. And in that moment - bursting with love, overflowing with stories, surrounded by the mementos of their childhoods past - Usagi was positive she could feel the spirit of their parents living on.

It gave her hope - that even if she couldn't see them, couldn't talk to them, her Mama and Papa were still there with her.

As they would always be.

**_Next Prompt_ : "Orange"**


	21. Orange

Mamoru wasn't going to lie - he was  _terrible_  at keeping secrets.

It wasn't that he couldn't keep his mouth shut. He could, very well in fact. Even under extreme duress. He still remembered very clearly the many torture sessions he'd endured at the hands of their enemies, desperate for information about his beloved princess and her mystical, miracle-bringing stone.

But that was nothing compared to keeping mum around said moon royal. Usagi just knew him too well. She knew his tells, from the bad days to the good. If she was paying attention, she could spot immediately and with deadly accuracy the kind of mood he was in, the second he stepped foot through the door. It didn't take long before he was spilling his guts with guileless abandon.

Which was why Mamoru was currently cursing every deity he could think of, and more importantly, the women who put him into this situation to begin with.

"Mamo-chaaaaaan," Usagi whined, loudly drawing the last syllable out to such an extent that people on the street around them cringed. Mamoru would've been one of their number, only he held his life in rather more value than that.

"Yes, dear?"

The ebony-haired man plastered on his most patient smile. It had gotten quite a lot of practice lately, as Usagi welcomed her thirty-two week mark, and just about every discomfort in the book along with it. To make matters even worse, Japan was in the midst of a blistering heat wave. It made for one  _very_  cranky future queen.

"Can't we go home now?" the bun-headed blonde moaned. "We've visited six stores already!"

As if in agreement, the mountain of bags in Mamoru's arms shifted alarmingly. He struggled to right them before disaster struck. "Just one more, Usako."

"But my feet h _uuuu_ rt," Usagi huffed, crossing her arms over the enormous swell that was her belly. Mamoru opened his mouth to playfully retort how  _her_  feet hurt, well what about him, stuck lugging the multitudinous spoils from their little outing... but then he saw how truly exhausted she looked, and heard the tears lurking behind her voice. All humor faded, and Mamoru began to feel really badly about forcing her on this spurious venture. But it also wasn't time yet...

"Just one more, Usako, and then we can go home, and I'll rub your feet for you. Now how's that?" the man entreated, with just the slightest edge of desperation coloring his query. It was a futile endeavor; Usagi was too grumpy to be impressed by bargaining chips.

"I don't think I can last that long," she declared in a piteous whimper. "Please Mamo-chan. I just wanna go home!"

"We- we can't..."

"Please," Usagi pleaded, and then she did it - she utilized her weapon of mass devastation. The one thing she knew would be Mamoru's downfall:

Big, sad puppy dog eyes.

He gave a concerted effort, he really did. Mamoru was surprised he even lasted this long. But dammit, the Senshi should have known better than to trust a pushover like  _him_  with a secret of this magnitude!

"Usako, I'm not... not supposed to..."

"Not supposed to what? Why can't we go home, Mamo-chan?" Usagi sniffled, still gazing up at him with those beguiling blues. Mamoru could feel the beads of sweat creeping down his neck as he struggled to hold strong.

"I really can't say-"

"You can't... wait.  _Wait_. Is it a party!?" Usagi squealed, all of a sudden miraculously recovered, an excited bounce in her step. Mamoru would have called her out on it, only he was too busy trying (and failing) to distract her from ruining everything the girls had been tirelessly working toward.

"Usako-"

"A surprise party! For me? Is it a baby shower? Is that why we can't go home yet!?"

...Too late.

"Usako, you're not supposed to know," Mamoru said, weakly, as he attempted to shush his now whooping and dancing wife back into some semblance of calm.

"I  _knew_  you guys had been sneaking around me lately! You can't keep these things from me," Usagi cackled.

"Clearly," Mamoru sighed, thoroughly and woefully defeated. "Hey! Weren't your feet killing you!?"

"Not anymore!" Usagi chirped, doing a pirouette. Mamoru buried his countenance in the groceries as his golden-haired mother-to-be took up the chant "Party! Party! We're going to a party!".

"I'm  _doomed_."

oOo

Half an hour later found Mamoru still - you guessed it - doomed.

"Can't you at least look a little less excited?" he hissed, the woman beside him beaming like she'd just won the lottery.

"But I  _am_  excited!"

"Not yet, you shouldn't be! Remember, you. don't. know.  _anything_. You need to act surprised!" Mamoru mouthed, as he fiddled with the key in the lock.

He really should have known better, he thought later, and for the umpteenth time that afternoon.

Usagi truly didn't possess a single acting bone in her body. When the door swung open into a swath of pure darkness, the bun-head let out the most untheatrical scream Mamoru had ever heard (and he was friends with Minako!). It only served to highlight the fact that she was off in her reaction when the lights flipped on, moments later.

If he'd had greater mobility, Mamoru would have slapped his palm to his forehead. Instead, the father-to-be groaned into his precarious grocery pile. Again.

"What was  _that_?" Rei snapped, planting a hand on either hip from where she was situated over near the light switch.

"We didn't even yell 'Surprise'," Ami pouted, peeking out from behind the couch.

"She had advance warning!" Minako shouted, pointing a damning finger at Mamoru. He didn't even have a chance to play the affronted; he was too busy wondering why Minako had chosen to wear the lampshade.

"We probably should have expected he'd be too wrapped around Usagi's pinkie to be a good secret keeper," Makoto sighed, shaking her head as she crawled out from underneath the coffee table.

"I'm really sorry, guys," Mamoru grimaced, shooting his wife a glare when she snickered heartily behind her hand. "She just... she did the eyes. I was helpless to her whims!"

"Ahhhhh," three of the girls nodded sympathetically. The fourth scoffed in disapproval.

"So?" Rei retorted. Until Usagi turned 'the eyes' on her.

"I'm really thirsty, Rei-chan. Can you please get me some water? It was so hot today."

"Aw, crap," Rei groused, after a brief and futile stare-down. She spun on her heel and made for the kitchen. Usagi smirked triumphantly.

"So you're not even a little bit surprised, Usagi-chan?" Ami asked, with just enough disappointment in her voice to make Mamoru feel two feet tall.

"Well," Usagi said around a cupcake - she had apparently discovered the food table and lost her willpower, all at the same time - "I  _am_  a bit surprised by your color scheme!"

Mamoru noticed then that the balloons, streamers, tablecloths and wrapping paper all followed a theme. He quirked a confused brow. "Erm... why is everything  _orange_?"

As one, the Senshi pivoted, until they were circling the culprit.

Minako giggled, throwing her arm behind her head in a show of sheepish embarrassment. "So I sort of made a, er, clerical error in the process of ordering everything-"

She ignored her audience's collective facepalm.

"But if you tilt your head and squint... it kinda looks pink!"

"Color blind, this one," Makoto rolled her eyes.

"I don't care," Usagi sniffled, and she threw her arms around the blonde, spraying crumbs everywhere. "I love it!"

Mamoru smiled as he took in the scene, from the strange selection of baby shower decorations to the women surrounding his heavily pregnant wife. Any shame he might have had left over from earlier dissipated, to be replaced by a glowing happiness.

One thing he would never have to keep secret, was how much Usagi and their future daughter were cared for by these four!

**_Next Prompt_ : "Marshmallow"**


	22. Marshmallow

"Mamo-chan... Maaaaaamo-chan..."

The voice seeped into his consciousness, syrupy and sweet.

The jab that followed, however - sharp and insistent, right against the side of his ribcage - was most decidedly not.

Mamoru grunted, jolting awake in an instant. He then recoiled in surprise upon finding Usagi's eyes mere millimeters from his own.

"U-Usako!" he gasped, while attempting to put some distance between them, and fend off a heart attack, all at the same time. Usagi smiled, settling back onto her haunches with a satisfied expression on her face.

"You're awake!" she announced happily. "Took you long enough."

Mamoru groaned, blinking blearily. "Usako, what time is it?"

"Only a quarter past two!"

" _Only_?"

Mamoru groaned again. He rolled over and pulled the pillow right over his head, burying himself beneath it. "It's still the middle of the night, Usako. I have to work tomorrow!"

"Is that what you would say if I was waking you up to tell you my water just broke?" Usagi growled, and Mamoru's eyes popped wide open. He flew up out of his self-made burrow.

"Did it!?"

Usagi had the grace to drop her vexed facade as she shrugged. "Well... no. But would you!?"

_'I'd beg God for one more hour of shut-eye'_  probably wasn't an appropriate response. Mamoru grimaced. If his rather more temperamental than usual wife was going for the guilt trip, she was succeeding. With flying colors. He mustered up his most contrite face. "Of course not, love. You just scared me out of a sound sleep is all. What do you need?"

'Need', because this was hardly the first time Mamoru had been startled awake in this fashion since Chibi-Usa's conception. And if the pattern held true...

"You know what I'm  _really_  craving right now?" Usagi said, gazing dreamily up at the ceiling. Mamoru sighed - he knew this question all too well. It was the answer that changed, frequently, and in ways that often flummoxed the normally straight-laced doctor.

"What are you craving right now, Usako?" he asked, patiently, and with the thought that maybe he should apply for sainthood. The odds were certainly in his favor!

"Motoki-onee-san's double decker sundae with hot fudge, pickles, cheese puffs and oooh... marshmallows!"

Mamoru fought the gag that burgeoned in his throat. "That sounds... flavorful?"

Usagi turned her starry azures Mamoru's direction. "Oh Mamo-chan. I want one  _so_  badly right now!"

"I think Motoki-kun's shop is well past closed at this point," he pointed out, monumentally grateful for that fact. Of course, he was hardly off the hook yet.

"I know. That's okay. I'd settle for just the marshmallows!" Usagi declared, perfunctorily. Mamoru side-eyed her with suspicion. That couldn't be the end of it. No, definitely not, much as he would have wished to just crawl back under the covers. The sleep-deprived father-to-be didn't have to wait long...

Usagi pouted, putting her well-practiced puppy dog eyes to work. Mamoru wondered if she was aware of just what an effect they had on him, especially now that she was such a pro. It was unfair, really.

"You know... Chibi-Usa is very hungry," the blonde said, supplicatingly.

"Using our daughter as a scapegoat for food? Not cool, Mama," Mamoru snorted.

"But she is too! See, Papa!" Usagi poked her thirty-three weeks stomach as if for emphasis, and Mamoru saw the bulge shift ever-so-slightly in response. It always amazed him how active his little peanut could be, even this late at night. He reached out to touch Usagi's belly and smiled when he felt Chibi-Usa kick back.

Oh, they played him like a fiddle.

"You two are incorrigible," Mamoru rolled his eyes with an indulgent chuckle. He pulled back his hand and the bedsheets in one fell swoop. "Alright then... can't have either of my ladies starving on my watch, can I? I suppose you've got me wide awake now anyway - what say instead of marshmallows, we make s'mores in the oven? Will that appease  _both_  of your bottomless pits?"

Usagi's eyes never seemed to shine brighter than they did in that moment. "Oh Mamo-chan! Have I mentioned lately how much I love you?"

**_Next Prompt_ : "Summer"**


	23. Summer

"It's hard to believe there's just a baby in there."

"Think the doctor lied to her and it's actually a Giant Chinchilla!?"

"You guys know I'm not actually napping, right? I  _can_  hear you!"

Usagi opened her eyes to the sound of scattered tittering. She rolled her head to the left where seven other girls were sunbathing, or rather, commentating unashamedly on the (admittedly colossal) size of her stomach.

"It sure looked like you were sleeping," Rei jeered. "I saw the telltale specks of drool!"

Usagi frowned and wiped at the corners of her mouth.

"Aw, leave her alone," Haruka said from the recline of her beach chair. She gave Usagi a cheeky wink from behind aviator shades. "I think your bump is perfectly Chibi-Usa-chan sized, kitten! It's cute."

Michiru, next to Haruka, and looking flawless as ever in her lace-trimmed creamy yellow bikini, graced Usagi with an indulgent smile. "So how many weeks is it now?"

"Thirty six. If all goes according to plan, she'll be here at the end of the month!" Usagi answered, the light of excitement brilliant in her cerulean depths. She rubbed affectionately at the taut swell of her stomach. Part of her was ready for it to be time already. Eight months had felt an awful lot like eight years, sometimes. Usagi missed simple joys like being able to wear heels, sleep on her stomach, eat junk food without a second thought... But she was only going to get one go at this. She had to remind herself of that fact, when impatience pushed her to rush, to instead stop and marvel at this beautiful yet fleeting miracle. "Maybe she'll even arrive on my birthday!"

"You're getting a bit pink, Usagi-chan," Luna spoke up from the cool escape of hers and Artemis' picnic basket carrier. "You're so fair, it might already be time for another application."

" _Again_? Aghhhhhhhh," Usagi whined. She tried rocking herself to and fro to gain enough momentum to sit back up. It wasn't going well. "Maybe she is a Giant Chinchilla... I - ugh - can't -  _move_..."

The bun-headed woman finally gave up and laid back down in defeat.

"I need Mamo-chan," she moaned piteously. Three faces came into view above her.

"I thought we agreed," Minako said sternly, hands on her hips. "No men!"

"Even if Mamoru-san does have many feminine characteristics," Haruka threw in, complete with her most toothy grin.

" _Heyyyy_!"

"Anyways, if you need a boost-"

"Just ask!" Makoto finished, reaching down to grab Usagi under one arm, while her blonde companions followed suit. "See - no need for male bravado!"

"Mamo-chan doesn't show off," Usagi pouted. "And he's very masculine!"

"Throwing roses? C'mon sweetie," Makoto chuckled. Even Ami and Hotaru snorted, from where they were buried noses-deep in a novel they were reading together.

"You're all mean," Usagi huffed.

"Or we just want you and Giant Chinchilla all to ourselves," Minako said with saccharine sweetness. She side-hugged the heavily expectant twenty-one year old and led her over to where Rei awaited, sunscreen bottle in hand. The priestess squeezed a generous dollop into her palm.

"Turn around, little Mama. This is weird enough as it is."

Usagi laughed out loud. She bent forward slightly so that Rei could massage the sticky white substance into all the nooks and crannies she could no longer reach.

"So have you officially decided on Azabu General then?" Rei inquired lightly, making small talk while she worked. Usagi sighed happily as her friend found a kink and began rubbing it loose. Supporting all that weight in the front really did a number on her back - ironically!

"Yeah. I thought about a home birth. But Mamo-chan's terrified something could go wrong and I would be without immediate medical aid. He says he has no experience with obstetrics and hopes not to need any anytime soon!"

Rei snickered. "Why am I not surprised?"

"Seriously, Rei-chan, all I have to do is cough and he's on me like moth to flame. The man needs Lamaze more than I do!"

Rei had to stop applying sunscreen, she was laughing so hard. When she finally calmed enough to wipe the tears from her eyes, the raven-haired woman smiled at Usagi. "Well, I guess you can't blame him. This is a big moment. I'm sure he just wants everything to go smoothly. He's always been a worrywart."

"He has," Usagi nodded, making soothing circles over her belly as Chibi-Usa practiced gymnastics. "I'm nervous too. But I also have faith that what will be will be. I can handle whatever life throws at us. What's a little pain and sweat when the end result is finally having her back in my arms, this time for good?"

Rei patted Usagi's shoulder. "Famous last words, Usagi. Famous last words."

Usagi scoffed. She whirled around and snatched up Rei's arm, playfully dragging her toward the leagues of sand and sea beyond.

"Let's not be serious anymore today. There will be days and weeks and years ahead of us of being serious. Today I want to make a sandcastle!"

Rei giggled. There was a familiar glint in her eyes as she set down the bottle of sunscreen and braced as if for war. "Bet I can beat you there, Sailor Waddle!"

And then she was off like a Flame Sniper arrow, leaving Usagi - quite literally - in the dust.

"Rei-chaaaaan, no f _aaaaa_ ir!"

**_Next Prompt_ : "Itch"**


	24. Itch

Usagi was a blur of motion, darting to and fro with a duster while her other hand haphazardly pushed around the vacuum. Mamoru was getting anxious just looking at her. He finally had to lay down his paper and put an end to this madness.

"Usako...  _Usako_! Calm down. What on earth are you doing?"

The human maelstrom paused in her frantic ministrations.

"Ami-chan says I'm 'nesting'," Usagi explained, with such an air of self-exasperation that Mamoru wanted to laugh. He watched as she blew a feather off of her nearly thirty-eight weeks bump, and she frowned at it in disapproval as the interloper floated to earth. "I'm starting to feel the part!"

Mamoru did chuckle then, coming over to gently extricate more feathers from out of her mussed odango. Then he pulled the cleaning instruments from out of her grip, and led Usagi to the couch.

"Well you've been 'nesting' non-stop for an hour now... it's time to sit down and rest already!"

"I guess I am a bit tired," Usagi admitted. Mamoru knew he had it bad as he clucked over her, adjusting the cushions and even insisting that she prop her feet up on his pristine table. Oh, what was she doing to his gentilities, he thought with utmost affection.

"You were making  _me_  tired!" Mamoru responded, half-amused and half-reprimanding. "You can't overwork yourself, Usako."

"I just want the house to be perfect for her arrival," Usagi pouted. "Besides - I know my limits!"

"Indulge me," Mamoru deadpanned. "You kick back, relax, and leave all the housework to your overprotective husband who just wants to spoil you silly!"

"Spoil me silly, huh?" Usagi smiled, a mischievous glint in her eyes blue as sky. She turned and peered over Mount Chibi-Usa, where chasms below, her toes wiggled imploringly in their socks. "Well then... first order of business, I can _not_  reach these darn suckers, and they are  _so_  itchy!"

"Would you like to me scratch your feet for you, oh great Bun-Headed one?" Mamoru inquired, with a grandiose bow.

Usagi giggled, playfully knighting him on each shoulder. "Yes please, oh lowly Maker of Buns in Ovens!"

Mamoru snorted, glaring up at his wife through his sheath of ebony fringe. " _Lowly_?"

"Hey! Who's the one doing all the  _real_  work here?" Usagi reminded, gesturing to the large expanse of belly before her. Mamoru had to give her that.

"Okay, okay. You win," he acquiesced. The gentle doctor bent down then and began to rub, taking care to follow Usagi's cues, focusing on the spots she made the most noise over. Usagi groaned in near ecstasy as Mamoru worked his magic. He knew carrying around their daughter day in and day out took its toll. Usagi's feet were often swollen and sore by the time they crawled into bed. This was just one of the many ways he could show her his gratitude. The gift she was about to give him (in perhaps less than two weeks' time, he thought with a thrill) was without doubt, the best he would ever receive.

"...Mamo-chan?"

Mamoru shook himself from reverie.

"Yes, my love?"

Usagi looked almost embarrassed. "Er... I hate to be a bother, but... canyouscratchmyknee, too?!"

Mamoru smirked, switching positions. "That good?"

"Ooooh. Just heavenly!" Usagi moaned. "Do the other one, do the other one!"

"You're very demanding today," Mamoru commented, teasingly.

"And you insist on spoiling me, so hop to it!"

"Why must you always be right?" Mamoru lamented, moving his finger now to Usagi's other kneecap. He was glad no one from his medical team was here to see just how whipped Dr. Chiba truly was - he'd never live it down!

"Perks of the double X-Chromosome," Usagi shrugged, making the letter with two crossed indexes. "Little to the left. Up. Further. Oooh, right there!"

Mamoru laughed as Usagi threw her head back in pure bliss. "Any more itchies?"

"Yeah, I-"

Suddenly, Usagi doubled over, releasing a startled cry of pain. Mamoru observed through his shock that she was clutching tightly at her stomach.

" _Usako_! Are you alright? Talk to me!"

The twenty-one year old couldn't answer at first. She kept her eyes cinched shut, and lips parted just slightly as she inhaled and exhaled in a manner Mamoru recognized as having been Lamaze-taught. He knew immediately what was going on, and it took every ounce of willpower not to devolve into panicked hysterics.

"That didn't feel like an itch," Usagi finally spoke at last, her voice markedly less ebullient than before. In fact, she looked about as terrified as Mamoru felt.

"Contraction?" he said, weakly.

"I think so."

Their eyes met, a dizzying myriad of emotions passing between them in the span of seconds.

"Oh God."

**_Next Prompt_ : "Family"**


	25. Family

Turned out, the culprit of Usagi's painful contraction was not impending delivery, but a simple case of Braxton-Hicks.

So was the time after that.

And the time after that.

And the time after  _that_.

Mamoru was starting to get sick of feeling like The Boy Who Cried Wolf. Leading his frustrated wife back out of Azabu General for the fourth time in less than two weeks was rather like making the walk of shame. He was a doctor here, for God's sake. You'd think after all this time he would have learnt a thing or two about keeping his head during stressful situations!

Everyone had been so friendly and understanding, assuring him that he was not all-knowing and it was better to be safe than sorry. Still, Mamoru was downright embarrassed with himself. He hated to admit it, but he might have even yelled at the nurse when she told them Usagi wasn't showing enough dilation. Something about how he knew where she could go get dilated...

Usagi didn't talk to him the whole car ride back. She just grumbled grumpily under her breath, sometimes with what Mamoru was pretty sure were obscenities interspersed throughout. He couldn't tell if she was mad at him for absolutely, totally, and utterly losing his cool the moment she announced another bout of contractions, or if she was miffed with her body for not having evicted the nine-month squatter already. Either way, he figured silence was the best route. No need to have his viscera ripped out just before the big day.

As Mamoru stared ahead at the road, fingers clenched white around the steering wheel, he suddenly had a burst of clarity. What was he doing? Mamoru looked at his arms; the way the tendons were all popping and how his hair was standing on end. This was ridiculous. How could he be Usagi's rock during her labor and delivery, if he was too busy running around like a scared decapitated chicken? Mamoru started to relax, grip loosening and tense posture deflating, as resolve began to fill his system. Next time he would be calm, he promised himself. Next time he was going to be strong - for her.

It would only be two more days before his commitment to composure was tested.

" _Mamo-chaaan_!" came the high-pitched call from the other room. Mamoru, who was in the process of putting away his lunch dishes, jerked at her cry. He had a feeling then, a preternatural sense of something  _big_ , and as he raced into the bedroom he saw that his intuition was correct.

Usagi was gazing down at her slippered feet with an expression akin to shock on her features. There was a puddle on the floor, slowly forming and pale in color, that seemed to be stemming from the pocket between her legs. Usagi looked up at Mamoru.

"My water just broke," she whispered.

Mamoru's mind sped through a bewildering array of emotions before he finally had a visible reaction, and that was to swallow thickly a number of times.

_Don't freak out. Don't freak out. Don't freak out._

He took a deep, steadying breath.

_She needs you._

"Okay..." Mamoru said, raking a hand through his raven hair. "Okay."

He moved forward with measured steps, until he was in front of Usagi. She stared up at him with a stricken countenance, and he forced a smile that he hoped was soothing onto his own. His hands snaked out to wrap around her upper arms. He hoped she couldn't hear how loudly his heart was pounding. It felt like his whole body was thrumming with electricity; a live wire about to burst.

But he had to stay  _calm_.

"Here's what we're gonna do, Usako, okay? We're gonna get you changed. We're gonna grab your overnight bag. And then I'm gonna drive us to the hospital."

Usagi nodded, hanging on to every word, yet still seeming a bit dazed.

"It's really happening," she gasped out, eyes wide.

"It is," Mamoru affirmed. He gave her a comforting squeeze. "But it'll be fine. You'll see. Everything's going to be alright. I'll be with you the whole time. Now... let's go have our baby!"

oOo

Everything was most certainly not 'alright'.

Usagi swore vociferously as she felt another contraction creeping its way from her back to the front of her abdomen, the muscles tightening most unpleasantly. She leaned forward into the chair, clinging to the top of its wooden arc with all her might. Vaguely, she could sense Mamoru's hand rubbing gentle circles between her hunched shoulder-blades.

"Why, kitten... I never would have thought you knew such cuss words!"

Usagi's head shot up, and her contorted face melted into a strained smile.

"Everyone!"

A parade of women jammed into the tiny hospital room, the sight most amusing to behold. They were such a strange coterie - a starlet and a priestess; an artist and a racer; a baker and a goth. They all clamored in with manic grins stretched taut across their shining visages, each hoping for a report from their dearly beloved princess and her heir-to-be.

Haruka clutched her heart, continuing on in the same vein - "Makes me so proud!"

From beside Usagi, Mamoru gave a jovial, belly-aching sort of laugh. "And she's only getting more colorful as we go along!"

Usagi elbowed him in the ribs.

"Didn't I warn you - 'famous last words'?" Rei snickered to Usagi, referencing their earlier conversation on the beach. Usagi just rolled her eyes, showing off her tongue to the temple miko. Then she twisted to greet each of her visitors in turn.

"I'm so glad you all could make it!"

"We wouldn't miss this for the world," Hotaru said, looking emotional. Usagi regarded the teen warmly, aware of how much having Chibi-Usa back would mean to the soft-spoken warrior of Saturn.

"Though some of us did certainly take their sweet time," Makoto coughed from behind her hand, as she sent a damning glance Minako's way. The blonde bombshell scoffed.

"I'm  _sorry_! But I couldn't find the outfit I picked out for the occasion!"

"What does it matter what  _you're_  wearing?" Rei interjected, exasperatedly rolling her obsidian eyes heavenward.

"First impressions are everything," Minako said, sternly matter-of-fact. Usagi sniggered at their banter; a welcome relief after what had now been three hours of constant tension and release, tension and release.

At that moment, Ami slipped into the room, bedizened in light blue scrubs with a white lab-coat worn over top. In her hand, she clutched a large clipboard. It was at Usagi's behest that the shy erudite was assisting Dr. Shurui with Chibi-Usa's delivery. The mousy young woman was surprised to see so many people gathered into the room, but she waved at her friends happily as she weaved through the throng, up to where Usagi was waiting anxiously.

"So? Is it time?" the bun-headed mother-to-be asked, in near-begging quality. Ami bestowed a sympathetic look upon her laboring leader, then flipped to the appropriate paperwork.

"Not yet, I'm afraid. You're doing great, Usagi-chan, and getting close, but you're stalled at 6 centimeters. It's not until 10 centimeters of dilation that we'll be able to prep you for pushing. For now, just keep moving around; let your body do what it needs to. I'll contact Shurui-sensei once you've reached the transition phase."

Usagi groaned, but Minako seemed stuck on other matters.

"10 centimeters... you mean I could fit my whole fist up there!?" the woman snickered, eliciting a collective cringe from everyone present.

" _Minako-chan_!"

"Whaaaat?"

Rei grabbed Minako around the arm. "Aaaalright, Blondie. You've had your fun. Now I think it's time we  _all_  went back outside to the waiting room so Usagi can labor in  _peace_!"

There was some scattered laughter and general well-wishing before Usagi and Mamoru found themselves alone once more. Then the pain flickered to life, burgeoning again from her back to her midsection, and Usagi moaned, settling herself in for the long haul.

oOo

It was going to be a  _long_  night.

That was what Mamoru told Motoki and Shingo for the umpteenth time as he gulped down his umpteenth coffee, glaring sullenly at the clock on the wall as it counted down the umpteenth hour.

Okay, okay. It was nearing the end of the ninth hour to be exact, but Mamoru sure felt like he'd been here since the dawn of Chibi-Usa's creation. Maybe he had. Maybe there was no forty weeks of prenatal bliss, and it was always just him, Usako, and these four white walls. Is this what being chucked into the loony bin felt like?

A hand was thumping Mamoru's shoulder and he had to forcibly drag himself back to reality, before he lost his drink to the violent reverberations.

"Aw c'mon man, it can't have been that bad."

"It was bad," Mamoru mumbled into his next swig, darkly.

Shingo seconded him with a vigorous nod. "This is my sister we're talking about. It  _is_  that bad."

Motoki grimaced, trying to muster up further defense for his favorite Crown customer, but even he had to concede -

"She always did have a bit of a temper."

"A  _bit_?" Mamoru repeated, anguished. He rounded on Motoki and gestured wildly, hot coffee sloshing everywhere. His two companions stepped back nervously. "She yelled at me.  _Yelled_  at me! Told me I was being overbearing and I should go get a coffee. Can you... can you believe that!? She's having our baby and I'm having God. Damn. Coffee!"

Mamoru finished his tirade by flinging the offending beverage into the trash can. Brown liquid sprayed all over the bag, the floor, the wall, but the overwrought doctor could care less. He was just glad he didn't have an audience besides his two close friends as he collapsed back into the break-room chair, burying his head in his palms. Motoki and Shingo had kept their distance as Mamoru raged fire and brimstone, but now they rushed to his side.

"I can't believe she kicked me out," he said, utterly defeated.

"Well - she didn't really kick you out, did she? She just told you to go get a coffee. Er... at the top of her lungs," Shingo supplied, rather unhelpfully.

"Besides," Motoki added. "You gotta cut her some slack, Mamoru-kun. Reika's got three sisters and was there for the births of every one of their children. She knows a thing or two about these kinds of things, and from what I've heard, it's sort of like getting your insides put through a woodchipper."

Mamoru looked up at Motoki, who was miming a grotesque death by disembowelment. He frowned.

"I really thought I was doing well. Then she just sort of... snapped." He groaned loudly. "I'm a useless doctor and an even more useless husband. I should just check myself into the psych ward and call it a day!"

Motoki's hand smacking into his shoulder was really starting to smart. "Mamoru-kun, buddy, I'm gonna give you a bit of tough love here, okay? I know you're exhausted. I know you're frustrated. I know you've just been hollered at by the love of your life during one of the biggest moments you'll ever share as a couple. But would you  _quit it_  with the pity party and take a second to think about how  _she_  feels? She's hurting, real bad. And sometimes when we're in that much pain, we can hardly bear to be touched. It's like sensation overload. We say things we don't mean, we hit where we can cause the most damage, and then we immediately regret it afterwards. Trust me - if I know Usagi-chan, she's about as remorseful as remorse can be. She  _needs_  you."

"But she kicked me out," he whispered, uncertainly.

"She told you to get a coffee," Shingo reminded, in a sardonic manner disconcertingly similar to Haruka's. With the shaggy blonde hair, the resemblance was almost uncanny. "Not leave forever."

Mamoru jerked his head, standing up and exhaling at length.

"You're right. You're absolutely right. I'm being stupid." Mamoru clapped each of the men on the back. "Thank you, for that. Now - I guess I have somewhere I need to be, eh?"

"Better you than us!" Shingo chirped, toothy grin in place.

"Hey, you're next, kid!" Mamoru warned. "The way you and Mika-san go at it..."

Shingo scoffed, waving him on. "I wouldn't keep my sister waiting, Mamoru-san."

Mamoru couldn't argue with that. He felt bad enough as it was. He hoped she wasn't enduring unimaginable agony alone in her room, her only comfort the nurses and Ami as they filtered in and out checking vitals. He couldn't believe he let her get to him like that, but he supposed, they were all a tad emotionally fraught right now. Maybe the break away - from that stifling little room and her awful cries of pain - had been good. He could come back alert and refreshed; ready to guide his wife toward that big final push... literally!

Purpose renewed, Mamoru exited the break-room only to find himself yanked by the collar and dragged into an alcove off to the side. He yelped as a pair of bright emerald eyes came nearly level with his own, his accoster clearly unbothered by common decencies like personal space.

"She's having a hard time... isn't she?" a voice - Mamoru recognized it as Makoto's - demanded from entirely too close. He squinted at her brawny female shape through the semi-darkness.

"You could say that," Mamoru hedged, wondering with embarrassment if the Thunder Senshi had overheard his mini temper tantrum. He wouldn't put it past any of those nosy girls to be sneaking around, in their boredom collecting all the dirt they could for future blackmailing use. But the fact that he was still upright, sans broken nose, was probably a good sign.

"Would you give her this?"

Mamoru was adjusting now to the lack of light, and he quickly discerned that the object being shoved into his hands was a picnic basket.

"It's just the thing to make her feel better," Makoto said with a twinkling smile, and then she was gone, leaving Mamoru staring down at his new acquisition in obfuscation.

_Homemade goodies?_  he thought, knowing that would surely cheer his wife up, only... it wasn't really the best time to be guzzling sweets, was it? Still confused, Mamoru peeked beneath the lid. Then he too was overcome by a wide smile.

"Ahhhhh."

oOo

Usagi sniffled and hiccuped through her latest barrage of tears, clutching the hand in hers for dear life as she rode out her umpteenth wave. The contractions were definitely and steadily gaining strength, and it was getting hard to talk through them. Nevertheless, she persisted.

"H-he p-probably h-h-hates me!"

"He doesn't hate you, dummy."

Usagi clenched her eyes shut and grit her teeth, trying not to think about how much she ached - even in places she didn't think possible! Fingers carded gently through the hair by her temple, working out the many tangles.

"You're tired. He's tired. It stands to reason there's going to be tifts here and there!"

Usagi opened her eyes, pouting at the onyx-haired woman before her, who had only stopped in for a quick status report and was now stuck playing tissue to her very inconsolable best friend.

"You weren't here, Rei-chan! I was so  _mean_! How can he ever forgive me?"

Rei glanced to the side, the corner of her mouth twitching. "Why don't you ask him yourself?"

Usagi blinked, watching as Rei stood up from her bedside chair, even though she kept her hand enclosed within Usagi's - probably, in case the blonde needed something to manhandle. Then Usagi refocused her attention to the entryway, where framed beneath its wood panels was her rather sheepish looking husband who was carrying, oddly, a picnic basket. But he barely had a chance to get two words out before Usagi was sobbing once more.

"M-M-Mamo-chan, I'm s-s-s _oooo_  sorry!"

Her wails increased as Mamoru approached the bed. She caught him sneaking a half-appreciative, half-apologetic look Rei's way. "Thank you very much, Rei-san. I'll take it from here."

Rei nodded, carefully disentangling her fingers from Usagi's. As she passed the twenty-five year old, she apparently couldn't resist one last jab.

"Hope you enjoyed your coffee, Mamoru-san," the virago muttered. Mamoru made a strangled noise, but otherwise ignored the comment. Probably for the best - Usagi felt terrible enough as it was.

Rei disappeared and Mamoru perched himself upon the mattress, next to Usagi's curled and trembling figure. She latched onto his free arm like a starving Israelite to manna.

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. Despite what I said, I didn't actually want you to leave," Usagi keened, and Mamoru's face went soft as he ran his fingers over her weeping eyes and cherry-colored cheeks, tenderly trying to wipe away her sorrows.

"I know that. Or, well it might've taken me a moment - and a few verbal slaps upside the head - but I figured it out. I'm sorry too that I left. I just thought you wanted space."

Usagi shook her head vehemently.

"I can't do this without you, Mamo-chan," she whispered. Then her face crumpled - not out of grief, but physical discomfort. This was the worst contraction yet. Usagi began to pant harshly. Her nails dug trenches into the skin of Mamoru's arm, but he didn't protest; just let her ride out the pain in any way she needed.

The basket in Mamoru's lap gave a rattle. It shocked Usagi into momentary distraction - she watched as the lid flipped open and a shock of black lunged out. The bun-headed woman screamed.

"That's a nice way to greet your beloved adviser."

"Luna!" Usagi laughed through her surprise, and she pulled her guardian feline in for a hug. "How'd you get in here?"

"Makoto-san smuggled her in. Don't ask me how she got past security..." Mamoru chuckled, reaching over to tickle the cat beneath her chin. Luna purred contentedly. "She's been dying to see you."

Usagi nuzzled the small cat tearfully. "Thank you for coming, Luna."

"I had to make sure you were okay," Luna said, sniffling herself. "Is it quite painful?"

"Like nothing I've endured before," Usagi answered. "Even as Sailor Moon. At least when I was having my energy zapped, I knew the hurt would only be brief before I was rescued or passed out. This feels endless!"

"Pain with a goal, Usagi-chan," Luna reminded. "It may seem endless now. But in a few hours you're going to look back and know the reward was worth it."

Usagi nodded, expressive blue eyes welling as she gazed upon her ancient guardian with the most ancient emotion of all. "You know, this whole night I've been wishing my mom was here to offer me advice and encouragement. I may not have her anymore... but I have the next best thing."

Luna blinked up at the twenty-one year old, seeming caught off guard.

"Ever since you came into my life, I've considered you not just a dear friend and my closest confidante... but like a second mother." Usagi smiled, her shimmering eyes crinkling with great affection. "I love you, Luna. Thank you for always being there."

Luna bowed her head, unspeakably touched by the sentiment.

"I love you too, Usagi-chan," she murmured thickly. At that moment, a pair of voices sounded from just outside the door. Luna looked alarmed about the impending intrusion, but she acted quickly.

"I have to go now, Usagi-chan. I'd like to stay here with the Senshi, but if the staff catches me, I'll get tossed." She licked Usagi's hand. "Be brave, sweet girl. You can do this!"

Luna hopped back into the picnic basket just as a couple orderlies entered, giggling about a humorous interaction with a former patient. They bustled cheerily about the room as Mamoru made a spectacle explaining how thoughtful it was for their friends to make him lunch. Usagi crossed her arms, rolling her eyes and grinning, as he winked conspiratorially at her.

"Well, better bring this back. Too much for me to finish in one sitting! See you in a minute, honey?"

"Unless you need a coffee," Usagi sassed, cerulean eyes twinkling.

"Not funny," Mamoru grumbled.

oOo

The thrill of adrenaline was high as Mamoru ran, sprinting headlong down halls and banging into doors like he hardly noticed their existence. He was fairly certain the only reason he had yet to be ejected from the premises was because on most days he was a respected doctor here.

Except today.

Mamoru stumbled into the waiting room, practically tripping over himself in his excitement. He barely got the words out before he was turning tail once more -

" _It's time_!"

Today, he was going to be a father.

oOo

"Push, Usagi-chan!  _Push_!"

Usagi bore down with all her strength. Somewhere, she could hear Mamoru chanting, his voice rising alongside Ami's,  _"Push! Push! Keep going!"_ , but everything was falling away into the blinding haze of pain, sweat, tears, and did she mention pain?

The contraction eventually subsided, but Usagi knew the next was not far in coming. She sucked down ragged breaths, relishing in the blessed reprieve. Mamoru swept a cool compress over her forehead, squeezing her clammy hand.

"You're doing so great, Usako, so wonderful!"

Usagi smiled weakly at him. She hoped she was close - she felt utterly drained. She had been pushing for near on an hour now, and after the toll of the active labor stage, her body was beginning to resist her demands upon it. The energy expenditure, just to keep herself propped up and cogent, was immense.

"I wish I could take a nap," the reincarnated royal moaned. Ami chuckled from below, her laugh like tinkling bells muffled by the surgical face mask. She patted Usagi's foot.

"I'm sure you do," Ami replied sympathetically. Her voice became teasing. "I could get cheerleader Minako-chan in here if you want... last I saw, she was running around the waiting room singing 'Baby Time' to the tune of MC Hammer."

"I think I'd rather they knock me out!" Usagi declared, which was soon followed by a self-pitying wince. "Oh God... Why oh  _why_  did I choose a  _natural_  birth... here we go again!"

The urge to push was all-consuming. Usagi threw herself into the act, trying to follow her body's cues. That's when she felt it - burning, tearing,  _ripping_  pain at her core, like a thousand knives were being stabbed into the skin down there. She'd done well up until this point, but the bunned blonde couldn't hold it back any longer. She screamed in agony.

There was a helpless quality to Mamoru's voice as he pleaded with the attendants,

"What's going on?"

Ami's response was an excited one. "She's crowning - Chibi-Usa-chan is on her way!"

Dr. Kotono Shurui put her hand on Ami's shoulder; teacher to pupil. "Do you feel comfortable delivering our patient yourself?"

The Senshi of Water looked indubitably proud of herself as she proclaimed, "I do."

Kotono nodded, standing up to give Ami her spot, front and center. Her tone was a mixture of impressed and pleased; few interns flew solo during their first delivery, but Ami Mizuno always was a quick study. "Then take the lead, Mizuno-san."

Ami seemed to be fighting numerous emotions at once as she placed her hands at the ready. Confidence fairly oozed from her voice as she said, "Alright, Usagi-chan. This is it - the grand finale! Mamoru-san... would you like to assist me?"

Mamoru's face was petrified.

"You can help me catch the baby!"

"S-sure."

Mamoru rounded the bed, and his eyes nearly bugged out of their sockets when he observed what birth was like from the other side.

"Wow," he breathed. "Oh, wow. That's... that's her? Right there? That little bit of pink?"

"That's our Chibi-Usa-chan!" Ami sniffed happily.

"Usako...!" Mamoru laughed in awe, looking up at her. But Usagi was on a whole other plane entirely, the fire cresting again inside her. She felt the siren calling, and powerless to her body's whims, leaned forward... straining... aching for the sweet release she  _knew_  was within reach...

"Oh, oh, oh... she's coming... Usako, she's coming!"

"Hold here, Mamoru-san, support the head... that's it... Usagi-chan, keep going!"

Usagi howled. Suddenly, moonlight escaped from the thick cloud covering and poured in past the hospital's lofty stationary windows, drenching everyone in the room, but none more so than the woman laboring upon the bed. Its holy light swathed Usagi with an unearthly glow, and she  _felt_  it, felt the power of her mother kingdom filling her... feeding her strength.

The pain changed. It was dulling; becoming more easily surmountable. A weakened foe. Usagi's awareness of the situation was rushing back, and with a thrill, she could see Mamoru and Ami crouching in front of her. In their hands, they were guiding a tiny, slimy newborn's entrance out into the world. There was no mistaking that messy coif of brightest strawberry:

"Chibi-Usa," Usagi choked.

Mamoru gazed up at her with the most intense expression of love and awe amalgamated into one.

"Chibi-Usa," he agreed.

The baby slipped free, squalling and red, into the waiting arms of her father and mother's best friend. Mamoru looked stunned speechless as he scooped her up, but he didn't have the heart to steal this moment from the real MVP of the night - he quickly and gently deposited the child to her rightful place at Usagi's breast. Usagi's own heart was a resounding Taiko drum as she accepted her progeny with trembling yet certain hands.

"Your mama, precious one," Mamoru murmured. His dark indigo eyes sparkled with joyful tears as he announced - with no lack of irony, for those in the know - "Looks like you were right, honey. It's a little Usagi!" He immediately situated himself next to the pair, close as he could without being too intrusive upon this special moment between Usagi and their new, yet unduly familiar, daughter. Ami was doing the same as she severed the umbilical cord, draped a blanket over the infant, then bustled over to prepare with Kotono for the placenta.

Usagi was in disbelief. She traced her fingers over Chibi-Usa's baby-soft skin; counted out her ten teeny digits and ten tiny toes; reveled in the powerful set of lungs the babe demonstrated.

"Oh Mamo-chan. She's perfect... so beautiful... Did  _we_  really make this?"

Mamoru stroked the downy tufts of pink with similar amazement. His fingers paused at the small girl's forehead.

"Usako - see that faint mark?"

Usagi craned for a closer look. Then she spied it, half-hidden under the caked blood and cheesy vernix - a crescent sigil, incontrovertible proof of their child's lunar lineage.

"She's ours alright," the man chuckled. "In case you weren't convinced by her banshee shrieking!"

Usagi and Mamoru shared a private smile at that, but the amusement soon morphed into something much deeper. A new bond had been forged between them, two souls twined into one, the physical manifestation of their love now suckling lightly at Usagi's bosom. The whole thing was nothing short of a miracle, and Usagi knew - could read in his eyes as surely as she felt it thrumming along the tethers of their soul bond - that Mamoru and her had never loved each other so much as they did in this moment.

Mamoru moved first, his enthralled countenance swooping in to steal the lips of his bun-headed wife. Usagi fairly melted at how intense the kiss was. When at last they separated, reluctantly resurfacing to reality, the handsome new father was sporting a cheshire grin.

"Oh yeah - and happy birthday, my darling."

Usagi's eyes widened into saucers.

"Oh my god! Is it really?" Usagi twisted, seeking out the clock on the wall. There was no mistake - 12:37am on the dot, on June the 30th. Usagi laughed with delighted surprise. "With all the excitement of the last couple days, I guess I forgot!"

"Usagi Chiba, née Tsukino... forgot her own birthday?" Mamoru teased, tone playfully aghast.

"Well what do you know? I guess I just received my first - and best - present of the day!" Usagi touted Chibi-Usa with a proud little giggle.

Mamoru leaned in close. His eyes still held a mischievous glint. "Hey, I have a question."

"Yeah?"

"Why is it okay for  _you_  to forget your birthday... but if  _I_  forget, I get slapped in the face!"

"Errr..."

oOo

He hadn't slept in approximately twenty-two hours.

He smelled like sweat, was splattered with Usagi's blood and his hand was almost certainly fractured, in at least three different places.

But Mamoru couldn't remember a time he had ever been happier. He settled back, reclining in his chair, content to just watch as Usagi was engulfed by the squeals and coos of her many friends and family. In the midst of it all, the center of attention, his daughter (not future daughter - his  _daughter_  daughter, Mamoru thought with a thrill) slumbered, truly a product of Usagi Chiba because she seemed utterly oblivious to the din surrounding her. The similarities between the two, even this soon, brought Mamoru to mirth. He chuckled in wonder.

_This is family,_ the once lonely orphan reflected.  _The true_ _meaning of family. A room full of people who may not be related by blood, but who love each other without condition._

It nearly brought him to tears for the umpteenth time that night, to know he was a part of this family, as much as he was the one he and Usagi had just created only hours before. He spent so long without anybody, and now there was more love in his life than he knew what to do with. Mamoru felt like a homeless man who won the lottery.

A touch on his shoulder startled Mamoru out of his musings.

"We're not late, are we?"

Mamoru jumped up to vivaciously pump the hand offered him. He was all smiles as he demurred to the three latest visitors,

"Well... it  _is_  only three-thirty in the morning. I'd say you're more than early!"

Umino Gurio shrugged, adjusting the massive bifocals seated upon his nose as he inclined his head toward the red-head beside him.

"Naru barely slept after hearing Usagi-chan had gone into labor. If you can't tell, we were eagerly awaiting your phone call!"

Naru beamed. "I knew it was going to be a girl! Oh, this is so exciting - Nefura will finally have a playmate!"

Mamoru bent down to say hello to the aforementioned child, an adorable three-year-old with glasses like her father and pigtails of auburn like her mother. She was sporting cartoon-emblazoned pajamas and bundled loosely in a blanket as she clung to her mother's neck, trying to hide her face from the world.

"Do you want to meet Chibi-Usa, Nefu-chan?"

The girl peeked out. She nodded mutely, still playing bashful.

"C'mon, sweetpea. Let's go see a  _brand new_  baby!" Naru enthused to her daughter, and she glided off to go join the melee. Mamoru watched his wife's childhood friend for a moment before turning back to Umino.

"How did we get so lucky, huh?"

"Not through any talent of mine, that's for sure," Umino replied, shaking his head. "Hey - thanks again for letting us have first dibs of the house, Mamoru-san. Seriously, it was a godsend. With Nefura starting preschool next year and Naru begging me for a second one, I wasn't sure how we could afford everything. The price you and Usagi-chan offered... it was more than reasonable."

"It was the least we could do," Mamoru said gently. "You're like family to us. Usako couldn't have picked better candidates for her parents' old home. She's so happy she could do that for you - presuming you give her free reign of the place once in a while!"

Umino laughed heartily.

"Well, you two -  _three_  - are always welcome, Mamoru-san." He glanced over to where Chibi-Usa was making the rounds, Usagi having relinquished her to the hounds at last, and observed his little daughter petting the baby's head. "And something tells me we'll be seeing  _a lot_  more of each other in the years to come!"

"Yeah - hope you like frills, bows, and the color pink!"

oOo

It was still dark outside when they materialized into the room, but the very first rays of sunlight were beginning to rise over the hills of the horizon, painting the sky an eerily incandescent purple.

She did not let her eyes drift over the room just yet, even though she sorely wanted to, but age had granted her patience. Instead, the woman turned to her two companions, who were clutching each other in a potent mixture of fear and awe.

"Incredible," the one with blue hair - a female - murmured.

"There she is," the one with spectacles and jet black hair - a male - gasped.

"We don't have much time," the mysterious woman said, and the two frightened individuals accompanying her turned to stare. She could tell they did not understand what was happening - one minute they were spinning out of control, about to embark on a deathly downward trajectory, the next they were being ripped through the layers of space-time - but that was alright. They just had to understand this gift came with caveats.

_"Two minutes only,"_  a disembodied voice spoke into her mind, and she relayed the information accordingly.

"I'm sorry it isn't longer. But we're already bending the laws of time travel; of nature itself. Any more and the consequences to the timeline, to our world... to  _them..._ would be catastrophic."

The pair nodded, but their faces were poleaxed.

She succumbed then to her initial desire, and allowed her gaze to fall upon the hospital bed, with its tiny bassinet set alongside. Her expression warmed to demonstrative degrees.

"Kenji Tsukino. Ikuko Tsukino. Go - See your daughter. But whatever you do - you must not wake her. That is very important."

Like a shot, they were off, no further prompting necessary. She watched as they approached twenty-two year old Usagi Chiba and her mere hours old progeny with all the adulation of priests to their deity, and it brought a lump to her throat. So much love, so much pain. She wished...

_"You cannot intervene."_

"I know," she sighed, to the specter in her mind.

_"Even if you did have that kind of power..._   _it is not wise to meddle with fate, my Lady."_

"Trust me. I know. You taught me only too well," she replied, in hushed tones that barely concealed her exasperation, shadows of the puerility she once long ago possessed. She could practically feel the smirk being leveled her way. But grief crept stealthily in as she noticed the interaction between Kenji, Ikuko, and Usagi once more - the gentle cradling and whispered affections; the muted bereavement and silent tears. Perhaps they did understand, more than they let on... She squeezed her eyes shut and pivoted away, no longer able to endure the dual blessing and curse of bearing witness to Kenji and Ikuko's last unrequited goodbye to their family.

"Kenji... look at this!" The shock in Ikuko's exclamation was almost palpable. Curiosity got the better of the woman and she turned back to face the Tsukinos, only to discover with a jolt of surprise that they were staring at  _her_.

"It's the same," Kenji observed, pointing from the baby in the bassinet to the stranger. "The same mark on their foreheads!"

Ikuko's eyes widened. She drew in a sharp breath. The dots were connecting...

"It's you. It's  _you_ , isn't it?" Ikuko's voice was quivering with raw emotion as she took unsteady steps toward the woman before her. "I... I thought you were an angel. The way you whisked us out of the car. Your - your white dress and wings like a Pegasus... Too beautiful for this earth. I never thought..."

Ikuko stopped in front of her, and reached out to cup her cheeks. She had gotten talented over the years, in maintaining her regal composure, but this was one battle she could not win. The woman released a muffled sob as the elder continued,

"But I see now, I see my Usagi in you. So much of my sweet girl. You're hers, aren't you? You're my granddaughter, the one in the cradle?"

The grown-up Chibi-Usa nodded, or as she went by these days, Lady Usagi Serenity. Her voice was gruff and burdened with unspoken regret as she concurred, "I am. Grandma."

Ikuko's breath hitched and before Chibi-Usa knew it, she was ensconced in not only her grandmother's arms, but her grandfather's as well, as he came to join the bittersweet reunion.

"Oh. Oh. You truly are so beautiful. The very picture of both of your parents. I'm so glad I could meet you... so glad!"

"Me too," Chibi-Usa choked out, knowing it would be useless to attempt to rehash their history with so little sand in the hourglass remaining. And speaking of...

_"It's time, my Lady."_

"No... please... not yet!" she cried. "Please... just a little longer, Puu!"

_"We did what we could for them. You know the rules."_

Ikuko seemed to understand, and she brushed the moisture from Chibi-Usa's anguished visage even as she began to pull away. "Thank you for doing this for us. For this glimpse of a happy future. Your powers are... magnificent. I have so many questions that I may never get the answer to, and that's okay. Just please... take care of her for me. We mothers desire nothing more than to love and watch over our children, but if... if I should no longer be there..."

Kenji laid his palm on Ikuko's arm. His tender brown eyes seemed to reach into the very depths of Chibi-Usa's soul.

"You never stop being a family," he said, with simplistic aplomb. "People grow old and then they leave us. That's life. But so long as there is love, I believe we never truly lose each other. Family is forever."

"Family is forever," Chibi-Usa repeated, softly. Kenji nodded and smiled at her. Then he gathered his wife under his wing, and held her close.

"Are you afraid?" he asked Ikuko, gently. They were beginning to dimmer and blur, like a transmission losing range. Stars, fading out of existence...

"No," Ikuko whispered, matching his fierce embrace with her own white-knuckled grip upon the folds of his overcoat. "The kids are alright - w _ill_  be alright. And... I'm with you. What is there to fear?"

Kenji closed his eyes, kissing her forehead.

"Nothing."

oOo

Usagi woke with a start, panting heavily. She burst out from her covers and her hand reached up for her heart, but it was intercepted by another.

"Hey, hey, hey. Calm down. It's just me, Usako. I'm sorry I woke you," Mamoru assuaged, bringing her hand to his chest and rubbing it comfortingly. Usagi swallowed in cool breaths of the early morning air, her eyes darting about the poorly lit hospital room, muddled and sleep-deprived mind still struggling to marry consciousness with reality.

"I - I had a dream. I can't - I can't remember but I think... I think my parents were in it..."

Usagi furrowed her brow and attempted to dredge up the foggy details, but it was a futile endeavor - like footprints on a beach, the waves of awareness flooding her body were erasing any impressions her subconscious might have left behind. The more she tried to recall, the less success she had. The blonde sighed cantankerously.

"It sounds like a nice dream," Mamoru offered, with a half-quirk of the lips.

"Well, it's gone now," Usagi lamented, ruefully shaking her head.

"It'll come back to you."

Mamoru leaned over, reaching into the bassinet. His whole demeanor went soft as a marshmallow as he carefully eased the small bundle into his arms, and Usagi watched him like he was the most precious thing in the world, second only to the child nestled in his superhero-protective grasp. He parted the blankets and tickled at the tiny infant's cheek.

"Hi, Chibi-Usa. Hi, Chibi-Chibi-Chibi-Usa!"

The baby's face scrunched up, and she let out a cranky sort of mew.

"Uh-oh... Mama, I think she's hungry again!"

"When isn't she?" Usagi rolled her eyes, and she held out her arms for Mamoru to make the transfer. When Chibi-Usa was settled, Mamoru went back to hovering, his expression excited as a little boy's at Christmas. Usagi found it utterly endearing.

"You know, Usako... I think she's got Kenji's nose."

Usagi blinked. "My Papa's? You think?"

"Oh yeah. And that dimple on her right side? Totally from Ikuko."

"I guess I can see that," Usagi smiled, tilting her head as she inspected said inheritance. Mamoru stroked his wife's fingers as they touched the nursing baby's cheek.

"They're always with you," he murmured, and Usagi closed her eyes, welcoming the usual pang that accompanied thoughts of her loss. It didn't hurt so much anymore, to muse upon their absence. She saw now, what others did - the signs of love her parents left behind. Her daughter was full of them.

"Did you go home for a bit?" Usagi asked her husband, purposefully changing the subject as she noticed his leather jacket slung over the back of the chair. Mamoru glanced at it too and a strange look came over his features as she inquired, "That cold out tonight?"

"I did, yeah. I wanted to clean up real quick and prep the nursery in case you two were discharged today," Mamoru responded, and his eyes grew even more shadowed as he addressed her second question. "The temperature's dropped almost twenty-five degrees since midnight. The weathermen are baffled. It looks like an unexpected cold front has suddenly popped up on their radar. They're jokingly hailing this as the 'beginning of the next ice age'. Winter in June... it's almost unheard of."

Usagi blanched, and her voice was weak as she voiced the possibility she knew was at the forefront of both of their minds. "An ecological disaster... Crystal Tokyo?"

Mamoru attempted to mollify her with an equally as uncertain, "King Endymion was never clear when the freeze would happen. For all we know it could be years away. Let's worry about the future one step at a time, okay?"

Usagi gulped and nodded, cuddling her new baby daughter close. She gazed down at Chibi-Usa, the way the infant molded to her figure like one halve of a whole, and slowly, she began to relax. Mamoru was right - they could not predict when their happy, blissful little bubble of domestic normalcy would implode. And even when it did, things would all work out, eventually. Come what may, they would always have each other.

Family was forever, and nothing - not ice, nor phantoms, nor even the inevitability of death - would ever be able to take that from them.

oOo

"We've lingered long enough, my Lady."

"Just five more minutes, Puu?"

Sailor Pluto shot the woman beside her a cocked brow at the diminutive name. For years now, she had become accustomed to hearing the prim and proper "Sailor Pluto" when being addressed by her current companion... unless of course, said companion was in want of something. Then she had a tendency to revert. It was both charming, and a little disconcerting, coming from the lips of a fully grown queen. It made her yearn for days long past. Of course, she could hardly fault Lady Usagi Serenity for the slip, when the pink-headed royal was only craving for a taste of the same.

"They look so  _young_. I almost forgot when Mama had blonde hair!"

"I daresay it has been a while, hasn't it?"

Lady Usagi chuckled, but there was a doleful undertone lurking in the shallows of her mirth. "I miss those days. They were simpler times."

Pluto didn't answer to that, feeling it her duty as the sentinel of time to remain impartial, but every cell in her body let out a resounding  _"Me too"_ as she parried a maudlin sigh. She noticed her longtime friend was still chewing on a thought.

"Thinking about your grandparents?"

"A bit," Lady Usagi murmured, eyes never leaving the image of her Mama and Papa as they crooned over her significantly more youthful counterpart.

"It was commendable what you did for them, even if I loathe that you put yourself at risk, stretching the limits of your powers like that."

Lady Usagi shrugged, channeling her mother in that regard.

"It always bothered me, that they never got to see the culmination of their lives' works. They deserved closure, or, at least as much closure as I could reasonably give. I figured this moment would've granted them the most peace, in... in the end." The new queen of Crystal Tokyo swallowed thickly, revealing a diffident side she rarely showed in the presence of others anymore. "Puu... do... do you think I succeeded? In bringing them peace? In honoring their last wishes?"

Sailor Pluto's stoic exterior crumbled, and she gathered in the woman she had come to love more than any other; who she cared for like her own. As she petted down Lady Usagi Serenity's strawberry-pink odango, she promised,

"My dear Small Lady, you have brought your family more love than you can possibly know."

**_The End_ **


End file.
